MyCom (My Commitment, My Community) may be the most ambitious effort ever undertaken in Cuyahoga County to provide underserved city youths with the kinds of life-enhancing, responsibility-building experiences that middle-class children take for granted: out-of-school enrichment activities, caring adult mentors, summer jobs. The planning for MyCom began in 2007, when some 250 community organizations, government agencies, faith-based groups, and youths came together at the Cleveland Foundation’s invitation to consider how to mitigate adolescents’ exposure to risk and help them harness their potential. The foundation’s $2.5 million in grants to support the launch of MyCom in 2009 leveraged $4.1 million from other funders, including the initiative’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 summer work for 3,600 teens. The long-term goal is to secure summer jobs for a greater percentage of the 11,000 first-year applicants and to expand MyCom’s offerings beyond eight pilot neighborhoods: Bellaire-Puritas, Central, Cudell-West Park, Mt. Pleasant, St. Clair-Superior, Slavic Village, northern Parma and southern Shaker Heights.