Since its establishment in 1980, the Treu-Mart Fund of the Cleveland Foundation and the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland has strived to focus its grantmaking on underserved populations or new areas of need. “We believe we can make a difference with that strategy,” explains fund president Arthur W. Treuhaft. However, the fund’s most impactful gift may well be to the field of philanthropy. Treu-Mart is believed to be the first fund in the country to have been set up under the auspices of a community foundation and a major sectarian philanthropic organization to support activities that a jointly appointed board of trustees deems to be in the best interest of the broad community.

This long, productive partnership has accomplished all the objectives of the fund’s creators, William C. and Elizabeth M. Treuhaft. The uncle and aunt of Art Treuhaft, Bill and Libby were each revered for their devoted and wise leadership of a range of civic organizations. When working in concert, they were a powerhouse team whose actions carried immense weight.

The Treuhafts had astutely perceived that the Cleveland Foundation would benefit from exposure to the federation’s exemplary work with living donors. Within a few short years, the foundation had wholeheartedly embraced the concept of donor-advised funds and established a program to provide this philanthropic service. Similarly, the Treuhafts believed the Jewish Community Federation, which relied heavily on volunteer leaders to carry out its planning and programs, would benefit from access to the foundation’s staff-produced analyses. Finally, the Treuhafts wanted to demonstrate to large, independent public charities the power of working together. The concept of collaboration, modeled so effectively over the years by Treu-Mart’s seven-member governing board, has become a key component of the region’s redevelopment strategy.

The name the Treuhafts chose for their fund—a combination of Treuhaft and Libby’s maiden name, Marting—aptly reflected the vibrant linking of two strong personalities and two rich philanthropic traditions. Elizabeth’s grandfather, John C. Marting (after whom Baldwin Wallace University’s Marting Hall is named), was a Methodist minister and educator with a deep commitment to the humanities. Bill Treuhaft, the founder and chairman of a multinational manufacturing company, Tremco International, spent his formative college summers as a counselor at Camp Wise, a training ground for Cleveland’s Jewish leadership for more than a century. In appreciation of Bill’s wide-ranging civic contributions, the Jewish Community Federation named him an honorary trustee for life.

Bill and Libby’s life partnership, which ended with his death in 1981, often found them working on different aspects of the same causes and projects. While he was busy in the 1970s helping to shape the future of the city’s educational and cultural center as the first chairman of the newly federated Case Western Reserve University and founding chairman of University Circle Inc., she was chairing the new University Circle Center for Community Programs, which organized museum field trips for thousands of schoolchildren. Libby also helped to establish the Cleveland Orchestra’s children’s concerts. “Here were these great cultural riches available,” observed Libby before her death in 1998, “but perhaps a little intimidating.”

Children remain central to the mission of the Treu-Mart Fund, which annually awards about $1 million in grants. In recent years, the board—consisting of three donor-appointed directors, two directors appointed by the Jewish Community Federation and two directors appointed by the Cleveland Foundation—has coalesced around a vision of a Greater Cleveland where every child receives the means to thrive. To that end, the Treu-Mart Fund has supported several promising collaborations covering a broad spectrum of youth development efforts. These initiatives include two new public-private partnerships conceived by the Cleveland Foundation: Invest in Children, a county-wide early childhood development initiative, and MyCom, a community-wide mobilization campaign to connect young people with enriching experiences and caring adults. The Treu-Mart Youth Development Fellowship, a professional development program initiated in 2004 by the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and now housed at the university’s Weatherhead School of Management, strengthens the community’s capacity to produce positive outcomes for its youth. The program has introduced dozens of area agencies that work with middle-school children to best-practices research in an intensive training program at CWRU, where Libby Treuhaft earned a master’s degree in French literature in 1933.