The Cleveland Foundation provided critical early-stage programmatic support over several years to the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, formed in 1999 by the Oberlin College environmental studies program to educate community and real estate leaders about the economic, environmental and health benefits of green building. The foundation’s first grant of $50,000 was awarded in 2001, several years before the movement to advance sustainable development gained a national advocacy arm.

The coalition, which is now a chapter of the United States Green Building Council, applied the foundation’s initial grant toward the renovation of a 1914 Ohio City bank building as a collaborative work space for its staff and volunteers and several other environmental groups. The Cleveland Environmental Center at 3500 Lorain Avenue was also a landmark demonstration project—Ohio’s first commercial retrofit of a historical building with energy-saving features.