…the proof department. Two weeks later he was promoted to the tax division of the trust department. And 47 years later he would retire as the bank’s chairman and chief executive officer. Karch had come up the hard way—selling newspapers, scrubbing pharmacy floors, laying pipeline and working as a laborer in a steel mill. After graduating from West High School, he enrolled in St. Lawrence University but dropped out less than two years later when…

…lity Fund Founder: Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization Educational Gift Fund of the Chagrin Valley Woman’s Club Founder: The Educational Gift Fund of the Woman’s Club of Chagrin Falls MedWish International Fund Founder: MedWish International Fund for the Future of Heights Libraries Founder: Fund for the Future of Heights Libraries Volunteers of America Fund Founder: Volunteers of America of Greater Ohio MidTown…

…attracted about $20 million in additional federal research funds, and the medical school had announced plans to build a new $78 million biomedical research center. The school’s increasing momentum had also helped to propel CWRU back into the national ranks of the top 20 private research universities. A three-year foundation grant of $575,000 awarded to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1988 similarly enhanced that institution’s capacity to…

…d Culture 1988 The Musical Arts Association 1988-89 season $70,000 Arts and Culture 1988 MYH Club Corporation Support for tutoring program $30,328 Civic Affairs 1988 NARAL Foundation General support $500 Social Services 1988 National Puerto Rican Forum Comprehensiv Competncies Prog. $112,500 Education 1988 National Urban Fellows, Inc. National Urban Fellow $31,000 Education 1988 Neighborhood Health Care, Inc. Physician recruit. & org. dev….

…ompted public indignation and political confrontations that in the end led to much-needed overhauls of Cleveland’s systems of public education, recreation and criminal justice. The education and justice studies even garnered national and international attention, respectively, as models of progressive reform. Because societal uplift is always a work in progress, the surveys’ most enduring contribution was in shaping the mission—and stiffening the…

…t of the common people. Goff had started his legal career as a solo practitioner and become the “super-troubleshooter” at one of Cleveland’s leading corporate law firms. Because of his specialized skills, Goff was appointed trustee of a bankrupt private streetcar company with which the City of Cleveland had battled for control of these critical transportation lines for seven years. In short order, Goff and Johnson negotiated a Solomonic…

…d distributed more than $4 billion in annual grants. But the intrinsic value of Goff’s concept goes beyond the amassing and awarding of financial resources. As evidenced by the spread of community philanthropy throughout the world, from Astrakhan, Russia, to Mozambique, to New Zealand, the concept’s universal appeal lies in a community foundation’s ability to bring people together around a common cause. From the asset-rich cities and towns of…