Chrissy Thornton Steers Associated Black Charities into its 40th Year

2025 is a big year for long-time Baltimore resident Chrissy Thornton. She’s turning 50, and the organization she’s led for more than two years turns 40.

Following an extensive background in the nonprofit sector - Thornton joined the racial equity organization, Associated Black Charities (ABC), as its latest president and CEO in 2023.

“I'm from New York, and being raised in New York in the ‘80s and early ‘90s exposed me to a lot of the justice work that was being done in New York during that time,” she says. “So, in my civic community and personal life, there's always been a lot of advocacy and what I would call movement work.”

In 1993, at 17 years old, Thornton moved to the Baltimore area to attend Morgan State University. She spent 15 years working at healthcare nonprofits: the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, and The Myositis Association.

In October 2022, Thornton was hired to head the Baltimore-based Associated Black Charities (ABC). “I was able to…marry my commitment to being like a freedom fighter, and civil rights-oriented, to my professional expertise in general nonprofit executive management,” she says.

She began in the role in January 2023, taking the helm from Diane Bell-McKoy. Bell-McKoy held the role for well over a decade, and Thornton described her as “highly regarded and respected.”

Illustrating a clarity of purpose, she states, “I was brought in specifically to reimagine who the organization was, who we were meant to serve, and how we would execute the work.”

ABC was founded in 1985 with a $100,000 United Way grant. Describing the organization’s original focus on family, the community at large, and its integration into the faith community – Thornton reflects, “I really had the opportunity during this period of transition for the organization to reimagine its possibilities, and I did that by really looking at how the organization originated in 1985, looking at how it served Black communities then.”

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Source: I95 Business