Community Champion of Equity and Justice Award Winner: Rev. Franklin Lance, DMin, MDiv

The senior pastor at Mount Lebanon Baptist Church has worked with the School of Pharmacy’s PATIENTS Program to advance patient-centered outcomes research.

By Lou Cortina, as published in the Elm
January 21, 2026

The University of Maryland, Baltimore will present its Community Champion of Equity and Justice Awards at the 2026 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History Month Celebration on Feb. 5. Rev. Franklin Lance will receive one of the awards.

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Rev. Franklin Lance, DMin, MDiv, has been working with the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP) since 2008, helping to advance its mission to improve public health through patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR).

Lance, senior pastor at Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in West Baltimore, says it’s critical to give patients — particularly those from underserved communities — a seat at the table in the development and execution of health care research studies.

“Typically, the standard has been that a patient would go to someone in the medical profession, describe his or her symptoms, and then trust whatever that practitioner has to say,” Lance said. “And in research, even though we have institutional review boards, we’re just assuming that someone has the patients’ interests at heart.

“The clear difference in this paradigm shift is that patient-centered outcomes research gives the patient an authentic voice in his or her treatment and in the research in which the individual is participating. So I am very proud of the change it’s having in the way that researchers and medical clinicians approach the work. No longer are the participants subjects, but they are true participants.”

Lance has worked closely with C. Daniel Mullins, PhD, a professor in the Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research at UMSOP and executive director of the PATIENTS Program, which aims to improve public health and eliminate health inequities (social and economic) faced by underserved populations.

“I’ve toured the country with Dr. Mullins as we talked to pharmaceutical companies about how to have more persons of color involved in research, what practices needed to be changed, how they needed to attract people of color,” he said. “My church and I have helped to provide participants for studies, I’ve chaired the PATIENTS Program’s Steering Committee, and we’ve helped to raise money, write grants, and go around the country speaking about the program.”

As an example of the PATIENTS Program’s impact, Lance talked about a member of his church who was participating in breast cancer research and could not understand the medical jargon that was being used by the researchers.

“And the participant said, ‘But if this research is about me, shouldn’t I be able to understand and discuss what’s happening about me in language that I understand,’ ” Lance said. “So what I am most proud of is the change this work is having in the way that researchers and medical clinicians approach the work.”

Lance points out that the PATIENTS Program is having an impact around the country. In 2025, by launching the PATIENTS Going National Initiative, the program built on its work in PCOR by collaborating with five new national community partners.

“I’m proud that the PATIENTS Program has continued to spread, that it’s setting a new paradigm, not only here at UMB, but also across the country,” he said. “We can look across the breadth of the country and see other entities, other hospitals, and other research institutions that are looking at our model as a more effective way of doing medical research.”

Mullins, who nominated Lance for the UMB award, called the reverend “a social justice activist who is concerned with speaking truth to power and ensuring that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.”

“During his tenure at Mount Lebanon Baptist, he has transformed the church into a thriving engine of community advocacy and change,” Mullins said. “His leadership has refocused Mount Lebanon into a church that is focused on making meaningful and sustained change for the betterment of the church, the Mondawmin neighborhood, and Baltimore City.

“Reverend Lance and his congregation advocate on behalf of the oppressed and disenfranchised,” Mullins added. “He has raised funds that allow the church to develop workforce development programs, provide healthy meals for Head Start children, work with developers to create affordable and safe housing, and recruit business owners to open businesses in the community.”

In addition to his role at Mount Lebanon, Lance has been president and CEO of Parks & People since 2019. The nonprofit works with the city of Baltimore and other partners to produce more green spaces, parks, and recreational centers in underserved areas of the city.

“We build parks, playgrounds, and green spaces all over Baltimore, and we focus on areas of the city that were intentionally disenfranchised and oppressed based on political and racial policies over the years,” Lance said. “What we’ve been able to do with this work is give these communities a sense of hope.”

Baltimore’s loss of more than 350,000 in population since the 1950s has created many empty lots and vacant properties and buildings, Lance said.

“We get rid of that blight, and instead we put a state-of-the-art park or playground or trail,” he said. “It gives the community beautification instead of blight and despair. It gives it revitalization.

“We’ve seen this change,” Lance added. “There’s an increase in housing value, a decrease in crime, and, anecdotally, people feel better about the places where they live. And for disenfranchised people, all of a sudden, they matter in the city where before they didn’t.”

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