John Sherwin Sr. and his wife, Frances Wick Sherwin, came from long family traditions of philanthropy and community service. John’s cousin, Belle Sherwin, was a member of the young Cleveland Foundation’s first governing committee. The Wicks were early settlers of Youngstown, and Frances’s maternal uncle, Dr. Frank E. Bunts, was a founder of the Cleveland Clinic. With their 1953 establishment of the Sherwick Fund to serve the general charitable needs of metropolitan Cleveland, John, a banker like his father, and Frances became philanthropists in their own right.

Recognized for his active commitment to the community’s betterment, Sherwin was appointed to the board of the Cleveland Foundation in 1961. As the foundation’s chairman from 1963 to 1971, he was open to new ideas and willing to experiment. “I’ve always felt that the unique role of the foundation is to provide risk capital,” he once explained. “If somebody has an idea worth backing, then we ought to back it until it gets on its feet and can carry itself.”

In response to the new provisions of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, the Sherwins advanced a bold idea of their own. In 1973, after 20 years of operation as a family foundation, the Sherwick Fund became a supporting organization of the Cleveland Foundation. Under this precedent-setting arrangement, the Sherwick Fund maintained both a separate corporate identity and the direct participation of its donors in determining policy, while gaining the assistance of the foundation’s professional staff in identifying programs and institutions whose efforts were likely to result in the greatest civic benefit. The Cleveland Foundation gained the ability to help target additional financial resources to the more pressing needs of the community.

As the first private foundation in the country to form such a partnership with a community trust, the Sherwick Fund inspired the creation of a host of supporting organizations. Today, with assets of about $20 million, the Sherwick Fund is the largest of the Cleveland Foundation’s 10 supporting organizations. In 2012, the Sherwick Fund awarded more than $1 million in grants. Helping to perpetuate his family’s distinguished philanthropic heritage, John (Jack) Sherwin Jr. has chaired the fund’s five-person board since 1987. (From 2003 to 2006 Jack Sherwin also chaired the Cleveland Foundation.) His eldest daughter, Heather, was the first female family appointee to the Sherwick board. Heather’s sister, Laura, succeeded her.