Inside the GBC/UpSurge merger: A new economic model is forming, and Baltimore is again a pioneer

It has been nearly four months since the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC) brought UpSurge Baltimore under its umbrella. 

Through that time, the two nonprofits navigated what it means to merge two distinct visions, and value systems, toward economic development. They’re still figuring that part out. 

“In-house, we haven’t adjusted things yet,” said GBC CEO Mark Anthony Thomas. “It’s more about us using these next three months to determine the right path — and, frankly, bringing in people who didn’t even realize that there was a place for them with UpSurge so we can actually see what the true north star is.”

Once defined by large infrastructure projects and corporate incentives, economic development is increasingly making entrepreneurship a more central tenet. Whereas traditional economic development once largely centered on business attraction and retention, ecosystem builders like UpSurge focus instead on growing local talent, supporting founders and fostering long-term economic resilience based on the assets already present in a community. 

This merger, while happening locally, reflects a fusion of these different value systems that appears to take place well beyond Baltimore. 

A new kind of partnership

The two organizations announced their integration back in December. This move brought UpSurge into GBC’s structure while retaining the former nonprofit’s brand, staff and programming priorities. Legally, GBC CEO Mark Anthony Thomas described the transaction as an “asset transfer” that involved no financial exchange. Neither organization has planned for staff reductions, although UpSurge COO Maddy Stokes recently moved to a position as the GBC’s head of strategic programs and performance. 

“If anything, the announcement in December gave us a chance to really understand what we were bringing into GBC,” said Thomas.

While technically an acquisition, both Thomas and UpSurge CEO Kory Bailey — now part of GBC’s executive team — emphasized the value of preserving what made UpSurge unique: its relationships, its “equitech” brand and messaging and its community orientation. UpSurge will continue operating as its own brand, but simply under the GBC umbrella. 

“This is a chance to bridge the worlds of entrepreneurship and economic development,” Bailey said. “It’s about continuing our growth as an ecosystem builder — just now within the framework of GBC.”

A strategic shift seen nationwide

Integrating an ecosystem-building organization into a traditional economic development group like GBC is part of a larger trend.

For decades, economic development was defined by large-scale real estate projects and corporate recruitment strategies. These efforts focused on using levers like tax incentives and zoning policy to land corporate headquarters, create shipping ports and establish advanced manufacturing hubs — all to benefit from the supposed spillover effects these employers provided. Economic developers historically focused on working with large institutions such as banks, universities and healthcare systems. 

But as the global economy became interconnected and shifted toward knowledge work, innovation and research-driven industries, so too has the strategy. Research on the effectiveness of corporate tax incentives is indecisive. Entrepreneurship, once seen as supplemental in economic development strategy, is now recognized as necessary to a region’s long-term growth.

By incorporating UpSurge’s equity-focused, startup-driven lens into its core strategy, GBC is signaling a more comprehensive approach to regional development that values founders and the ventures they build as critical economic assets.

Signals of this evolution are happening around the country. In 2023, the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), the largest membership body of economic developers in the US, appointed Mo Collins as its first-ever director of entrepreneurship.

Can the two strategies coexist?

Bringing together UpSurge and GBC’s models poses both operational and cultural challenges. 

Economic development tends to operate from the top down, emphasizing capital attraction, infrastructure and policy levers. It is obsessed with growth: more jobs and more companies. The industry is zero-sum: one region’s gain is another’s loss, as was the case with Amazon HQ2 and the 238 cities that competed for it.  

Ecosystem building, on the other hand, is bottom-up. It is asset-based and seeks to design structures and processes where entrepreneurs of all backgrounds can get appropriate support, generate wealth and thrive. It values coalition-building and collaboration over competition, and growing the economic pie rather than dividing it. 

Bailey, who took over as UpSurge CEO in fall 2023, sees this difference not as a problem, but as a design challenge. 

“The tension between top-down and bottom-up is where culture is created, and we should embrace that,” Bailey said, paraphrasing a quote he attributed to Travis McCready of JLL and Johns Hopkins Tech Ventures’ advisory board.

Still, embracing it won’t be easy. This integration was built on the two organizations’ joint effort to lead Baltimore’s application for the Economic Development Administration’s federal Tech Hubs program. Baltimore successfully earned a Tech Hub designation but got passed over in both rounds of implementation funding.

Even so, Thomas and Bailey remain optimistic about what their combined reach makes possible. UpSurge’s ties to early-stage founders and local innovation leaders now pair with GBC’s institutional relationships among corporations, philanthropic entities and government. Bailey has been joining Thomas at stakeholder meetings to better understand this broad network of GBC’s partnerships and role within the regional economy.

“In a market like Baltimore, we just haven’t had the practice with doing what happens in other markets,” Bailey said. “We need to build the muscle memory — and the infrastructure — for startups to engage with corporate partners in ways that are validated and mutually beneficial.”

“The way that Mark is describing the work of ecosystem building, and [with] the changes in leadership that are happening around the innovation economy, I’m really excited about it,” he added. 

In the coming months, GBC and UpSurge will continue refining shared goals, integrating staffing structures and engaging their respective stakeholders. This includes new titles for UpSurge staff, immersion with GBC’s 2035 economic plan and expanded collaboration across sectors.  

100 years of economic development approach to leadership 

Baltimore’s role in shaping economic development strategy and coordination among the community of practitioners is not new. The region sparked early coordination among the national community of economic development professionals. 

In 1926, the Baltimore Association of Commerce’s Findlay French helped plan the first conference of industrial bureau managers. This led to the formation of the American Industrial Development Council, later renamed the American Economic Development Council (AEDC) in 1930. A Baltimore executive, George C. Smith of the Canton Railroad Company, was the national organization’s very first chairman.  

Decades later, Ed deLuca, Baltimore’s director of economic development, responded to the 1965 Watts Rebellion by gathering economic developers across the country together to explore strategies within its biggest cities. This initiative gave rise to Helping Urban Businesses, which became the Council for Urban Economic Development (CUED).

In 2001, IEDC was formed through the merging of AEDC and CUED. In other words, the modern field of economic development partly began with organizing and merging efforts within Baltimore. 

GBC is not new to acquisitions and mergers, either. The current organization became what it is today after a 2022 merger with the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, when COVID-19 forced the two organizations to reconsider how they advocated for regional investment.

So while the integration of GBC and UpSurge reflects a broader trend, it’s also a return to form. This city, steeped in a strong organizing prowess, and during a period of national uncertainty and political division, could once again help define what economic development can become.