Did you know that Frederick County is one of the fastest growing counties in Maryland? Because of this, it is undergoing important demographic and social changes not only because of growth but also because of its role as a commuter suburb of the surrounding metropolitan areas.

This change affects all of us and brings more attention to pressing human needs in our community. In 2011, the Community Foundation and a group of sponsors commissioned the first Frederick County Human Needs Assessment. We wanted a solid, unbiased assessment to guide our grantmaking, and from that, we’ve been strategically focused on providing grants to organizations addressing health care, school-readiness, and homelessness. Last year, we commissioned another county-wide human needs assessment to update the 2011 study (again, via a third-party, unbiased source) to see if and how the most pressing areas of human need had changed. The data has just been released, showing that the most pressing needs have changed, but the needs from 2011 still exist and are contributing factors to the current issues. In this update, supporting families with children, preparing for an aging population, and responding to substance use disorder have risen to the top.