…starting with his behind-the-scenes work to enable the foundation’s merger with the Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation in 1968. In 1982, he helped to facilitate the foundation’s first program-related investment, used to buy the $3.8 million Bulkley complex critical to the future of Cleveland’s Playhouse Square theaters—and Cleveland’s revival. Bank’s quiet backing of $5 million commitments to both neighborhood revitalization and public…
…eveland and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation to come to the table and help identify new ways to collaborate on the improvement of Greater University Circle. Agreeing that the future of their institutions and the Circle was inextricably linked to the health of the surrounding communities, the four CEOs formed the core of a planning task force that grew to include public, private and grassroots representatives with a stake in attracting new…
…al foundations, Ellwood H. Fisher, the chairman of the foundation’s board, explained that GCAF would dedicate itself to exploring “possible solutions to broad problems that are too extensive and too costly to be attacked by existing organizations, which must concentrate on solving today’s urgent problems today.” Although legally a nonprofit Ohio corporation with its own staff and 11-member board, GCAF was technically a new trust fund of the…
…, 10 new daycare centers and a variety of summer youth programs; and pushing the completion of the city’s stalled urban renewal projects. While Stokes envisioned that the federal government would pick up most of the tab, he explained to the television audience that he expected Greater Clevelanders to contribute $11.25 million in seed money to “stop the downhill slide, to start the city moving forward, to create a climate in which our city can…
…targeted urban neighborhoods. She had also observed the pitfalls of workforce training programs that prepared low-skilled city residents for jobs largely available in distant suburbs. Recognizing the need for an out-of-the-box job creation strategy, the foundation turned to Ted Howard, a national expert on community wealth building based at the University of Maryland. Howard was retained as a consultant to the foundation in 2007. He helped the…
…s and 1,127 pages, the encyclopedia had first been suggested to its eventual co-editors, David D. Van Tassel and John J. Grabowski, by retired Cleveland Foundation director Homer C. Wadsworth. A series of foundation grants supported the research and writing of more than 2,300 entries. An updated edition of the encyclopedia can now be found online….
…eveland Foundation underscored the importance of securing the future of the Cleveland Orchestra—an international treasure recently ranked as the world’s favorite orchestra by Bachtrack, the international concert reviewer and online listing resource—with a 2013 grant of $10 million, the largest award to an arts organization in the foundation’s history. A leadership gift to the orchestra’s “Sound for the Centennial” campaign leading up to the…
…ding, mentorship, networking opportunities and visibility to individuals with creative ideas for new small businesses should be part of Greater Cleveland’s economic development strategy. In the first “class” of grantees in 2004 was Cool Cleveland, a weekly e-mail newsletter launched in 2002 to cover the people, places and activities deemed “cool” by its founder and publisher, Thomas Mulready. The foundation’s $30,000 grant gave the experimental…
…ive’s principal partner, Cuyahoga County. To make the most efficient and effective use of its funding, the partners decided not to create another program, but to connect youngsters to all the appropriate programs already in existence. MyCom’s evolving online and phone-accessible directory points parents and kids to more than 1,900 activities and services such as tutoring and career exploration. In its first year, MyCom’s jobs program found…
…Trust in 1937, served as secretary of the Cleveland Baseball Company for 20 years, and in 1947 was elected president of the Cleveland Bar Association. He maintained a 750-acre farm in Bath, where in later years he raised cattle, hogs and chickens. At his death he bequeathed eight acres of his Gates Mills property to the Cleveland Metropolitan Park Board to link two park areas along the Chagrin River….