Our Projects
Advance Maryland serves our community by partnering with organizations across the state who share our values and vision for Maryland. In addition to our partner work, we invest in several projects and coalitions with sustained, in-depth efforts. Members of our team serve on their leadership teams, and guide strategic planning, digital, and communications, and policy advocacy. We often run social media accounts, lead legislative strategy, provide operational support, create media guides, write press releases, and much more.
Through the Maryland Youth Justice Coalition (MYJC), AMDEF serves as the backbone for a statewide coalition advancing policy change that keeps young people out of the adult legal system. For fourteen years, MYJC has organized for a Maryland where no child is at risk of system involvement, and those who do come into contact with the legal system are met with care, not punishment.
In May 2026, Governor Moore signed the Youth Charging Reform Act — the result of more than a decade of coalition advocacy. The new law makes modest, targeted changes to Maryland’s automatic charging practices, beginning to unwind a system that funnels 16- and 17-year-olds into adult court. Roughly half of the cases that would have started in adult court will now begin in the youth justice system, protecting about 500 young people every year. We regard this as the first step in ending the practice of automatic charging children as adults altogether.
Looking ahead, MYJC is focused on defending the new law, expanding its network across the state, and ensuring Maryland funds the prevention and community-based programs that keep young people from becoming system-involved in the first place. Most importantly, the coalition is working directly with young people to understand their priorities and reflect them in the work ahead.
Tax Credits for Maryland Families (TCMF) is a coalition of community-led organizations, nonprofits, and Marylanders working to strengthen the tax credits that give hundreds of thousands of working families in Maryland the opportunity to thrive. Working family tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) help Marylanders afford basics like transportation and child care, so they can take care of their families and contribute to their communities and our economy. In 2023, TCMF led the charge to make the pandemic expansions of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits permanent in Maryland.
Every Marylander needs safe, affordable housing in order to thrive, but our state lacks crucial renter protections to help people access housing, and stay in their homes. That’s why we’re partnering with Renters United Maryland to advocate for policies that support stable housing, and stronger communities.
Maryland is a national leader when it comes to protecting bodily autonomy, but we continue to face threats from a hostile federal government, and anti-abortion states. We must stay vigilant and connected in order to protect Marylanders and those traveling to Maryland seeking abortion care, and gender affirming care. That is why AMDEFM created the Reproductive Justice Advocates Network – to ensure bodily autonomy is a right that can be equitably accessed by everyone in our state.
Long-term change also requires shifting the narrative. Through the Youth Rights and Safety Hub (YRSH), a project launched by AMDEF in 2025, we work to reshape how Marylanders talk about, and understand young people and safety. Conversations about safety too often place disproportionate responsibility on young people while overlooking their needs and their right to safety. YRSH partners with community members, policy experts, and communications professionals to share the truth, not the hype, about what Maryland’s kids are experiencing and what they need to thrive.
YRSH convenes a hub space with youth members, youth-serving organizations, and other key stakeholders, and sends a monthly newsletter to decisionmakers across the state. We publish a regular analysis of how media covers youth in Maryland that reaches key decision makers across our state, and we write essays and feature guest writing from young people and partners on the YRSH Substack.
In addition to the sustained, in-depth work we do with our core projects and coalitions, our team provides on-call strategic, organizing, communications, and digital support to many other efforts and organizations across Maryland. Our team has been involved in numerous efforts including rapid response immigrant rights, Baltimore City grassroots organizing efforts to amplify community voices, supported voting rights coalitions fighting against suppression tactics, advocated for fair taxation policies that ask the wealthy to pay their share, and advanced economic justice campaigns that put working families first. Our efforts are stronger when we undertake them together. If you’re interested in learning more about our “On-Call Support”, please contact us.
