The Cleveland Foundation at 100
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SPECIAL REPORT: THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION AT 100 100Cele YEARS ating f purpose Making an art of community engagement. Congratulations to the Cleveland Foundation for 100 years of dedicated service in support of the Greater Cleveland community. Civic engagement and collaboration are central to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s mission and key to our successful future. Our profound thanks for being such an exceptional role model. www.clevelandart.org Come see amazing. Ta e CONTENTS www.CrainsCleveland.com 700 West St. Clair Ave., Suite 310 Cleveland, OH 44113 (216) 522-1383 • (877) 824-9373 PUBLISHER/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR 6 John Campanelli 100 YEARS EDITOR For the last century, Timothy Magaw the foundation ART DIRECTOR has turned Rebecca R. Markovitz passion into purpose PRODUCTION MANAGER Craig Mackey ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Nicole Mastrangelo COURAGEOUS ACROSS THE SPECIAL EVENTS 13 VOICES 16 COUNTRY Jessica Snyder The foundation hasn’t The foundation’s MARKETING STRATEGIST shied away from infl uence runs deep Michelle Sustar taking bold stands nationwide CONTRIBUTING WRITERS BY THE NUMBERS PRIORITIES LIST Rachel Abbey McCaff erty Crain’s and the Learn more about the Michelle Park Lazette 21 24 Amy Ann Stoessel foundation teamed up foundation’s targeted for a community-wide investments ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES survey Lindsie Bowman John Banks A GLOBAL STORY LOOKING AHEAD Dawn Donegan 36 The foundation’s 40 In 1920, Leonard Andy Hollander Anisfi eld-Wolf Book Porter Ayres predicted Mike Jansen Awards put the what Cleveland would spotlight on diversity look like in 2014 SUBSCRIPTIONS To start receiving Crain’s Cleveland Business, please purchase a subscription for one year at $64 or two years at $110. For subscribers outside Ohio, one year is $110 or two years is $195. Call the Crain’s Cleveland Business Customer Service THROUGH THE YEARS... team at 1-877-824-9373 or email them at [email protected]. 10 A look at 25 landmark moments in You may also purchase a subscription online the Cleveland Foundation’s history at www.crainscleveland.com. AND REPRINTS AND PERMISSION THROUGHOUT THE MAGAZINE Alicia Samuel at 212-210-0750 or [email protected] www.CrainsCleveland.com 3 Cleveland Institute of Art FROM THE CEO Creativity Matters MCKINLEY WILEY Saluting The Cleveland Foundation For 100 years of helping make Cleveland a great city in which to live, work, and he board and staff of the Cleveland Foundation are study art and design. delighted to partner with Crain’s as we commemo- T rate the foundation’s centennial year, looking back at our rich history and ahead to a second century of community philanthropy. For us and for the field that our founder, Frederick Har- ris Goff, launched with the incorporation of the Cleveland Foundation on Jan. 2, 1914, this year is a time for reflection as our communities adapt to the effects of corporate globalization, cia.edu EST 1882 technological change and government’s struggles to fund local needs. Challenges and opportunities like these are prompting serious conversations about the evolution of community philanthropy in the remainder of the 21st century. We are CUYA HOGA COMMUNITY CO LLEGE (TRI-C®) asking ourselves tough questions: How do we partner with government and the private sector, even as we assume some of the roles they once filled and funded? Are there limits to what SALUTES place-based philanthropy can achieve on its own? How do we engage millennials and diverse audiences? THE CLEVELAND It is good to contemplate these issues — but this is also a time for celebration. We are at the midpoint of the Cleveland FOUNDATION Foundation’s centennial year, and there is much more to come: n Our monthly free gifts to the community will continue through December. n Our 79th annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ceremony, honoring literature that contributes to our understanding of cross-cultural inclusion and human diversity, will take place Sept. 11 in the Ohio Theatre. THANK YOU n The Council on Foundations, a national association of grant- for 100 years of making foundations, will hold its 2014 community foundations improving the lives conference here in Cleveland, the cradle of the field, in late of thos e in Greater October. This giving community sustains a great legacy of generosity, Cleveland and beyond. worthy of celebration. Journey back in time on the Cleveland Foundation’s history website, www.clevelandfoundation100. org. Savor the present through our free surprise gifts. Come join the world’s first community foundation as we welcome a Where new century of impact for all of us. futures Ronald B. Richard www.tri-c.edu begin SM President and CEO Cleveland Foundation 4 www.CrainsCleveland.com FROM THE PUBLISHER t may be impossible to walk a block in Cleveland without encountering the work of the Cleveland Foundation. If you want to be awestruck by the impact of the nation’s fi rst I community foundation, head over to www.clevelandfoundation100.org and browse the database of awarded grants. The searchable records go back to only 1988, but they include more than 47,000 gifts to the community. The range of recipients is staggering: universities, hospitals, social services organizations, cultural institutions, nonprofi ts, libraries, economic development projects. The effect is eas- ily seen in the physical realm, in bricks, steel, glass and green space. More than 1,000 capital grants have been awarded since the 1950s. The results range from Blossom Music Center, the Rock Hall and the Cleveland Museum of Art to shelters, camp cabins and the renovated cars of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. Yet the greatest effects have been so much more than the physical. Take the more than $1 billion in grants, multiply it by a generous factor and you may still not get the true economic, educational and cultural benefi ts to Greater Cleveland. To paraphrase the “give a person a fi sh and he eats for a day; teach a person to fi sh and he eats for a lifetime” adage, the founda- tion has given us fi sh, taught us to fi sh, taught us about the fi sh, showed us how to paint or John Campanelli sculpt the fi sh, helped us clean the water, kept us healthy enough to fi sh and so much more. Publisher, We in Cleveland often forget that the foundation’s deeds spread much wider than North- Crain’s Cleveland Business east Ohio. As the fi rst-ever community foundation, it has inspired the world. Today, more than 1,700 community foundations exist worldwide, with tens of billions of dollars in assets. They look to Cleveland for guidance, best practices and vision. Crain’s Cleveland Business is honored to have the opportunity to celebrate the Cleve- land Foundation’s centennial and help tell its story. We are well aware of the foundation’s substantial effect on local business — and of the generous support so many in the business community have shown in return. “Grateful” only begins to describe our feelings. A century of purpose has passed. Another one awaits. www.CrainsCleveland.com 5 100 YEARS By Timothy Magaw the Cleveland Foundation to put their dollars to work to improve the quality of life in Cleveland — a city rich with t age 16, around 1872, Katherine Bohm immi- history and ripe with promise. grated to the United States, and like thousands Cleveland Foundation president and CEO Ronald B. A of other Germans, she and her mother settled in Richard likes to say if he had a magnet that could suck up Cleveland. The smoky city was on the heels of the Indus- all of the important work the foundation has done over the trial Revolution, and thousands of immigrants were pour- last 100 years, there wouldn’t be much left. The foundation ing into the region. has played an integral role — also an understated one — By virtue of their own determination, Katherine and her in the evolution of Cleveland and many of the important mother found work as a cook and a laundress in the homes institutions that call the city home. of some of the city’s most prominent industrialists. One of The foundation, for instance, has played a key role in those industrialists, Samuel Mather, was neighbors with the evolution of some Cleveland’s hallmark institutions, Frederick H. Goff — a trusted local attorney and banker including Cuyahoga Community College, the Cleveland who had the courage and foresight to launch the Cleveland Orchestra, the Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland, Foundation, the nation’s first community foundation, in PlayhouseSquare, the Cleveland Metroparks, the city’s 1914. public schools and countless others. Still, the foundation Goff’s radical vision was to pool the charitable resources isn’t interested in a victory lap. of Cleveland’s philanthropists to create a permanent en- Indeed, the Cleveland Foundation, dowment for the betterment of the community. Inspired by whose assets now exceed $2 billion, Goff’s work, Bohm, who died nearly blind and with one continues to turn passion into purpose. leg, left almost her entire life savings — $6,454, to be exact “If we can’t do 10 times more in — to the foundation. the second century than we did in the A modest amount, sure, compared to the millions of dollars others have left the foundation. The circumstances surrounding Bohm’s gift were no doubt unique, but her intentions were not. Countless others have also entrusted Illustration by John Roman OF GIVING first, there’s something wrong with us,” Richard said. 1920s soured what small endowment the foundation had built. However, in 1931, a $3 million bequest from Harry Coulby — AN ENDURING LEGACY known as the Czar of the Great Lakes — cushioned the blow of By their very nature, community foundations are challenging the Great Depression.