- [Announcer] Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (bell dings) (attendees chattering) - Good afternoon, and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

Today is Friday, February 17th, and I am Teleange' Thomas, chief operating and relationship officer at Jumpstart.

Today's forum is the James S. Lipscomb Memorial Forum on the philanthropic spirit and community leadership, and we will be discussing how to advance racial equity through the power of black giving.

It is my distinct honor to introduce our guest, Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb, who will be joined in conversation with our moderator, Connie Hill-Johnson, chairperson for the Cleveland Foundation.

So often the narrative paints black people as the beneficiaries of philanthropy rather than the benefactors, but the numbers tell a different story.

African Americans give 8.6% of their discretionary income to charity, more than any other racial group in America.

Nearly two thirds of African American households donate to charity totaling 11 billion each year.

In the black community, there is a culture of philanthropy and community investment.

Their collective generosity aligns in three primary categories.

Cornerstone, giving higher education and the arts to grow minds and preserve the culture.

Kinship, donating to organizations directly serving the black community, meeting basic needs in elevating their social, emotional, and economic conditions.

And sanctified, supporting the black church, generationally sustaining their faith traditions while supporting the ministry.

In 2019, the Soul of Philanthropy Cleveland vividly displayed the power of African American philanthropy in our region through a collection of historic and contemporary stories and images.

Community leaders, activists and philanthropists collaborated to create an artistic display that educated audiences about the rich history of black charitable giving, and to tell their stories of philanthropy and empower communities of color.

The exhibit, Celebrate Those Who Give Black, centered Cleveland in a national conversation on black giving, humanity, and transformational change.

The Soul of Philanthropy Cleveland inspired the establishment of the Cleveland Black Equity & Humanity Fund, which supports and facilitates investment and causes and issues that promote black-led social and economic change throughout Northeast Ohio.

Today we will explore how we can help bolster equitable outcomes and opportunities for Northeast Ohio's community using the power of black giving.

If you have a question for our guest, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

You can also tweet your question at the City Club, and City Club staff will try to work it into the second half of the program.

Members and Friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Mayor Justin Bibb and Chairperson Connie Hill-Johnson.

(crowd applauding) (Connie laughing) - Good afternoon.

- [Members] Good afternoon.

- I am tremendously excited and humbled and honored to be here.

I look out over this room, and I've been to many forums, and I don't know how many I've been to where it has been packed out like this.

So I know it's all because of our wonderful mayor.

- No, no, no.

- Who is here.

And so what a privilege to be able to talk to you.

But I first wanna give a shout out, since tele Teleange' gave a wonderful introduction, to those individuals in this room who partnered with the Soul of Philanthropy Cleveland.

So could you just stand real quick?

(crowd applauding) Every volunteer, every person who partnered with the Soul of Philanthropy Cleveland.

(crowd applauding) So that was just the beginning of wanting to have ongoing conversations about what black philanthropy really means and how it can be a great influencer in our city in terms of closing the wealth gap and working on so many disparities.

But before we start, I just wanted to do a little icebreaker.

- Uh-oh.

(crowd laughing) - I always hear you talk about you're from Mount Pleasant.

- Yes.

- And most people here know I'm from... - Glenville.

- Hey, hey.

(Mayor Bibb laughing) Hey, hey.

No shame there.

- Stay champs by the way.

- Hey, hey.

(crowd applauding) - Stay champ.

- Hey, hey.

Hey, hey.

(Mayor Bibb laughing) Hey, hey.

But that being said, I have very fond memories of growing up in Glenville.

So if I asked you, what is something about growing up in Mount Pleasant that still resonates with you, whether it's from your childhood.

And think back to your youth, not as an adult.

After you went to college and came back home, what still rings that just warms your heart about your neighborhood?

- So, I remember when my mom allowed me to buy my first bike.

I think I was six or seven years old.

And we walked to East 100 31st Street.

There was an old bike store.

I bought my first Huffy bike.

Now, for the first couple of weeks, I had to use training wheels, you know.

But then when I learned how to ride that bike, I was going up and down Angeles, (indistinct), Barlett.

And then back then...

So where I grew up... And my neighbor, Monique, is here, by the way.

My neighbor who I grew up with.

There's a corner store right by the house I grew up in, and we would get old Faygo pop cans and put them in the wheels, and I drove my bike all the way to Randall Park Mall.

(crowd laughing) The... Monique know about this.

The whooping I got when I got home, boy... (crowd laughing) Mama Bibb says, "Never again will you ever do that."

That's my favorite memory.

That's my favorite memory.

(crowd laughing) - That's good.

(Mayor Bibb laughing) That's good.

I don't know if I can top that, (Mayor Bibb laughing) but mine is kind of twofold.

I purchased my very first 45.

I am older than this man here.

There was a record store, Felton, right over from the Glenville Library, and I would walk down Thornhill Drive, which turned into 100 20th Street, and there was a little record store right on the corner, and I purchased my first Jackson 545.

(crowd laughing) That was the biggest treat of my life, to have Michael Jackson playing in my basement.

That was one.

The other was, For those Glenville folks, we used to have what was called the Glenville Festival.

- [Mayor Bibb] Huh.

- And it was right next door to the YWCA, which isn't there.

And so the community as a whole, every summer, could not wait until the Glenville Festival.

And I would walk and I'd cut over and walk past Glenville High School and down 100 13th Street and cut over through the park to go to that festival.

And you would see everybody who was anybody who grew up in the neighborhood.

Even people who had moved away came back.

So every time I drive down St. Clair and I look over at that old field, I think- - Those memories.

- Oh gosh, the Glenville Festival.

So I just- - Hopefully you didn't break a lot of heart to those festivals.

- No, no.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Ah-ah, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no.

(Mayor Bibb laughing) And I didn't know him then.

I did not know him then.

(crowd laughing) I did not know him then.

I did not know him then.

All right, so now that we've gotten... Now that we have gotten that out of the way, now that we have gotten that out of the way, I'm just gonna kind of set the stage in a little bit of what I'm gonna say Teleange' said, but I need this to sink in for folks that are here, and it lays really the context for this conversation.

There's no greater indicator of racial inequity than the gap in wealth between black and white Americans.

Black full-time workers, on average, between the ages of 25 and 34, made an average of $39,820 over the last few years, compared to 52,750 for white workers.

Additionally, the total assets of black households averaged 206,966, compared to white households whose total average was 1,101,000.

Despite the systemic barriers to building wealth and attaining economic mobility in the US, the black community, the African American community, has consistently embraced a philosophy and habit of giving in monetary and non-monetary ways.

Black households, as she said, give 25% more of their income annually than white households.

Nearly two thirds of African American households donate to organizations and causes, totaling 11 billion each.

Perhaps black philanthropy is a response to the collective understanding of barriers that have existed over centuries, underscored by a deep sense of accountability too, and a deep love of community.

Even so, most African Americans discount their roles as donors, despite the fact that they may have a lifelong history of giving of their time, talent, and treasure in many ways.

So I wanted to set that as the foundation so that everyone here can think about, we are centering this conversation on people that look like me, and Justin, in our community, and how we can have a greater impact in how black philanthropy can be used to address many of the ills of our society in the city of Cleveland.

So with that being said, how can the intersection, do you think, of equity and giving black help further bolster equitable outcomes and opportunities for people here in Cleveland?

- Well, I first wanna just unpack that frame you laid out for us.

And my first reaction was, for black folks, giving in philanthropy is a state of being, not extracurricular activity.

So what do I mean by that?

I think about my upbringing in this city where both of my grandparents, my Grandma Sarah and my Grandma Irene, if they only made a hundred dollars that week, at least 75 is going to the church.

They would say, so a seed, because you never know when you gonna need that seed to come back to you tenfold.

And that's why growing up in the black church, I see my grandma's pastor is here, Dr. Hedgeman here, she would just give me $5 every Sunday to show me the importance of giving as a kid.

And so it was about survival.

And I believe that giving is in the DNA of black people.

However, I think the issue we see in this country right now is, we don't understand how giving comes in multiple forms and fashions.

It's just not about monetary donations, it's about service.

I remember vividly, if I couldn't get a hot meal 'cause my grandma or mom wasn't home, I'd go across the street to Ms. Smith's house.

She would make sure I got something to eat.

We need to do a better job of lifting those stories and centering the work that our foundations do, that our nonprofits do, in that sense of giving, particularly, in the black community, because it's not an extracurricular activity for us.

It's inherent in our DNA.

- But how do we leverage that?

How do we, as you say, call it out, lift it up, and recognize it for what it is so that it will even aid in lifting Cleveland?

We have been told, and we know this, that we are one of the poorest...

I hear you say that all the time.

- Second poorest.

- Second poorest big city.

And so how do we shift that?

How do we as blacks, in our philanthropic heartbeat, partner with you in shifting that?

- Well, let's talk about on an issue by issue basis.

- [Connie] Okay.

- One of the things that I'm dealing with now is how do we inspire and train and recruit the next generation of police officers in our city?

And my father, to me, is the best example of the importance of this.

My dad grew up in the Huff neighborhood, and he went to go serve in Vietnam, came back, and said, "I wanted to be in law enforcement."

And he went to Tri-C, to the Fire Academy and the Police Academy at Tri-C, and that was our pathway to the middle class.

That's how we broke the cycle of poverty in my family.

It didn't require a very complicated government policy program.

It was how do we identify talent in our neighborhoods, how do we make sure there's a pipeline and exposing them to what's possible.

That's a big part of it.

But how do we center the programmatic giving and programs we're creating with their voices, with their lived experience in mind, how are they reflected on the boards of our foundations?

(crowd applauding) How are they reflected on our boards and their staffs of major organizations in our community?

And I think that's a big part of it long term.

- Well, you know, in sitting up here with you, and I look around the room, I think we all can say that we have recognized that there's been a shift in the city of Cleveland.

- Absolutely.

- That there's been a shift in the pigmentation of those who are now leading many of our organizations.

And for that, I think we need to applaud (crowd applauding) as we talk about diversity and inclusiveness.

But with that being said, those of us in these positions need to be very focused and intentional, as you said, about...

I hate to use this cliche.

Reaching back and recognizing that some of those folks I grew up in Glenville with and some of those folks you grew up in Mount Pleasant- - Still there.

- Are still there.

And so how do we collectively, and those of us who are giving of our time, talent, treasure.

And I don't know if Velva is here, but she added a fourth one saying, and our testimony- - That's right.

- How do we really move the needle so that when we go back to the neighborhood, we're seeing fewer and fewer folks.

- And I think it's time for us to, as we celebrate what I call Black Excellence Month, Black History Month, I think it's time for us to redefine what the Black American dream is.

- [Connie] Okay, I'm gonna let you.

(crowd laughing) - Sorry, sorry.

- The floor is yours.

- You know, for a long time, we were taught that go off to college, go to grad school, get a good paying job, never come back to Cleveland.

Or if you do come back, set up shop in Twinsburg, Solon, Bratenahl.

And my brother, Mordecai, can speak to this.

For our generation, it is time for us to buy back the block and build back the block in the inner city of Cleveland.

(crowd applauding) Right?

And when you think about the racial wealth gap, we know that home ownership is the biggest thing we can do to close the racial wealth gap in this country.

That's why I'm so excited about our forthcoming plans that we have for the east side of Cleveland because if we can build back the block on Kinsman and Buckeye, and Lee-Harvard, there's a whole new generation of wealth that can be created Right in our community.

And I get jealous when I travel in New York, I walk up Malcolm X Avenue in Harlem, and I see this amazing black history, but also amazing black wealth being created.

That same level of innovation and culture can be created on Kinsman.

- Right.

Right, right.

- But I think what's happened is I think we failed to have imagination about what's possible in our city for far too long.

And I think for a long time, we suffer from a poverty of ambition.

We're afraid to take risk, we're afraid to fail, we're afraid to step out on faith because it's taboo when you do that if you're not successful here.

It's one of the big reasons why I ran for mayor.

I had nothing to lose.

And it's why I'm so focused on taking big risks now for our city because if we don't take those risks now, we may never get this moment ever again as a city, particularly with the black leadership we have in our community.

There we go.

(crowd applauding) - So... You know, a shout out to my colleagues at the Cleveland Foundation and where we were just last night.

And I wish I had brought the brochure.

But we were at an event, and Teleange' was there, to talk about what is coming called Black Avenue.

- [Mayor Bibb] I love that.

- And what an experience to be able to talk about rebirthing 70 something and 55th, which were, when my parents were here in their younger days, was the hopping popping spot not only for entertainment, but for thriving black businesses.

And so just to hear the conversation around the possibility of a Black Avenue... That is the name folks, Black Avenue coming back, a cultural district, a business district, a place where residents wanna live.

And so that's very much in line with what you're talking about.

- Yeah.

- And taking those risk.

- And a shout out to Ronn Richards and the entire team at the Cleveland Foundation.

Think about the importance of what they're doing.

The world's first community foundation right here in Cleveland has made the conscious choice to say, "We are not gonna stay in the ivory tower of the city, we're going to the neighborhood."

To the neighborhood.

(crowd applauding) And so I think it's an important example of how philanthropy can be that early adopter to lead that kind of community innovation.

And I know our friends at Gund are thinking about the same thing.

I see Tony's in the audience.

And I got a lot of vacant land on the east side, (crowd laughing) brother.

So when you're ready to make that deal, the red room's wide open for you and your team.

- So here we are at a time when politics are so polarizing.

In the minds of some, there is a connection between party affiliation and the emphasis on social outcomes of one party or the focus on economic outputs by another party.

What do you believe Mayor Bibb?

How are philanthropy and economics intertwined, and do they cross political and racial barriers?

- It absolutely is.

I would say a couple of things about this question.

I think the one conversation we must have in this city about giving is political giving.

So, we are a majority black city, and to me, one of the best ways to affect change is to elect people who look like you, who share your lived experience, who share your values.

It is not easy to run for office.

It takes what?

- [Members] Money.

- [Connie] Money.

- And for us as a people at the local level and the national level, we must use our money to elect candidates who share our values.

So the work that Quentin and Stephanie James are doing at The Collective PAC, huge.

I wouldn't have got elected mayor without many black donors in this room who sacrifice $5,000 checks to help elect a no-name candidate, right?

That money goes a long way, and it's important that we think differently about the power of political giving, just as well as other parts of giving in our community.

- And so then, as we talk about political giving and politics in general, I'm always dismayed that when it's time to vote on local matters, our numbers here are abysmal.

- Yeah.

- They're abysmal.

And so how do we, again, from a philanthropic standpoint, and even in equity standpoint, how do we shift that?

Do we need to put you back out knocking on doors again (crowd laughing) - Well, I haven't stopped.

- Local election comes on.

- I haven't stopped.

- But how do we get, particularly our young adults, and even some of our old adults, to recognize that all politics is local?

From who's on the school board, to who's in city council, to who's at the state level, but we seem to show up only for the presidential election.

- Yeah.

Well, at the state, this is why electing members of the legislature who understand the importance of voting is critical.

Just last year, this state passed the law, one of the most racist voting laws in the country right here in Ohio.

That's a problem.

And we don't vote for our state legislature in the ways that we should be voting right now.

Columbus is hamstringing us in many ways that we are just blind to as a community.

The other thing I would say, and I'm so inspired by the work of Cleveland VOTES that Erika Anthony is leading.

Democracy is broken.

(crowd applauding) Give them a round applause.

We have a democracy problem in this city.

There's a lack of trust, there's a lack of hope.

We've been trying to disrupt how we think about this in my office through the work we wanna do with participatory budgeting.

I have proposed putting $5.5 million from the American Rescue Plan to support participatory budgeting in Cleveland.

It's been proven from Boston to New York to Philly that it allows more people to get involved in the political process.

It gives them a say on how city money is spent.

And I think this would be a good way to get more people involved, to show that your voice and your vote matters, not just in terms of trash collection, but police reform.

All those things play a role, and I think we both in government and philanthropy, must continue to work together to invest in innovative, disruptive things that we believe could restore democracy right in our city.

- So you went down the path of policing.

So I'm gonna go down that path with you for a minute.

I read an article on Sunday's paper.

I don't remember the names, and it's good that I don't mention the names.

But as we talk about policing and police reform and wanting our community to get involved.

- [Mayor Bibb] Yeah.

- You know, you see something, say something.

Read an article about a young man, and now that we are in open carry state, which I don't know how I feel about, but nobody wants to hear my opinion.

(crowd laughing) Gentleman was policing his neighborhood.

- [Mayor Bibb] Yeah.

- And being from Glenville, I'm reading it.

And he was in Glenville.

So Kevin and I were trying to figure out, okay, what drug store was he behind?

Was he there on this... Yeah, yeah.

Long story short though, somebody called the cops because he was walking down the street, you know, trying to make sure everything was cool, and surrounded by cops who told him to put his gun down.

Ended up going to jail, but it was interesting because one of the police officers said to him, or said to her fellow cops is, "He's right, this is an open carry state."

And, "He's right.

He'd walk around with his gun, and we might be looking at a lawsuit."

This was one voice of a cop saying this to their peers.

And so, of course, as a black woman, and as you talked about, we see things through our lived experiences.

Our lived experiences.

And so I thought immediately, and I said to my husband, "They saw black man walking down the street with a gun."

- [Mayor Bibb] Yeah.

- Comment on that.

Because here he's saying, as I'm reading, "I'm trying to do my part in my community.

I'm trying to make sure the cops aren't called if I can break up something, if I can get kids to safe housing or in a safe place," but it didn't work out well.

- No.

- So where do we find that balance between those of us who want the best in our communities and don't wanna see a Memphis... And wanna do what we can do to still and bring the peace and take the tone down a bit, but a perfect example of a gentleman whose hearts...

I don't know the man.

Seemed like it was in the right place, but he spent the night in jail.

- I would say a few things.

Number one, Antoine Tolbert does some great work in our community and is a prime example of the importance of elevating more grassroots voices as we have these hard conversations about police reform.

I think we need to use that moment, obviously, what we saw disgustingly in Memphis several weeks ago, as a way to show that not just in Cleveland, but across the country, we have a lot more work to do in terms of the victimization and the trauma that black bodies experience when they interact with law enforcement.

It's one of the hardest parts of my job as mayor, trying to change a culture to ensure that we not only have accountable but constitutionally appropriate policing, but policing that shares our values on equity, justice, to build that trust.

That's why I'm excited about the work we're gonna see with the new community police commission.

And mind you, this is the toughest independent civilian oversight board in America, right here in Cleveland.

But this is a 100-year problem we've been dealing with in this city.

So much so that the Cleveland Foundation did a report about this 100 years ago.

And so we are nowhere near where we need to be, but we have made progress as a city since we lost our brother, Tamir Rice.

I mean, Cleveland is the only city in America that's been under two consecutive consent decrees.

But since the consent decree, we've seen dramatic declines in use of force, incidences between police and residents.

We've seen declines in complaints against police with residents.

And so we're making progress, but I think the best way to solve the problem is to be a part of the solution.

Join law enforcement, join the CPC, continue to advocate for the importance of constitutionally appropriate policing, because we can't solve it unless our people are a part of the solution long term.

- So let me take a little deeper, because even in saying that, we still recognize that whether we're talking about crime or whatever in our communities, and I'm specifically, again, talking about the black community, it still comes back to joblessness, homelessness, health disparities, the wealth gap.

- [Mayor Bibb] Yeah.

- So for black people, we were all raised that owning a home is your first big move out of poverty, if you will, but yet we continue to read about and see bubbling up redlining that is occurring all over.

- In different forms.

- And in different forms.

It may not be as obvious as it was years ago, but it still rears its ugly head.

- [Mayor Bibb] Yeah.

- And it rears its ugly head even in our city.

And so, again, where do we go with that?

Where do we go with that in our financial institutions?

= Yeah.

I recently saw a, a clear example of this.

We were trying to do some work to support black small businesses right on Kinsman, and they talked about their insurance problem.

So let me give you a deep dive on this.

Insurance companies like Progressive, Nationwide, et cetera, will upcharge or not even ensure certain companies in certain black neighborhoods in Cleveland, but a couple of blocks up the street in Shaker, they get insurance.

So if you wanna start a business on Kinsman, you might not be able to do it because lack of insurance.

- [Connie] Yes, lack of insurance.

- The other thing is, we saw this major outcry from almost every major bank in the country about their racial equity commitments to social justice after George Floyd.

I don't know where that money went.

(crowd laughing) - [Connie] Me neither.

- Now, I know there are a lot of great banks on a lot of great things, particularly in Cleveland, but I say that to say we have to find a way to create an easier pathway for money to get to where it's needed.

- Yeah.

- Without all the bureaucratic regulatory issues.

And look, I'm running a large bureaucracy, I get it.

Right?

(Connie laughing) But we gotta be innovative.

- Yeah.

- One thing we're trying to do at Cleveland is, to be a certified business right now in this city, you have to prove you've been in business for at least a year.

To me that makes no sense, so we're gonna get rid of it.

(crowd laughing) Or the bonding requirement.

I see Arian from AKA Construction in the building.

We have these outdated bonding requirements that undermines the ability for black construction companies to get their fair share of these major deals.

So we're gonna put construction reform on the ballot to change it in our charter, right?

To give them a better pathway.

And so sometimes government gets in the way, and sometimes the private sector gets in the way for being too obtuse in terms of how they think about policy and how they think about the change.

And you know why that happens?

Is because they don't have us at the table.

- Yeah, yeah.

Another good example of that is, I went to, I think, it was the GCP annual meeting or something a while back and the question was raised about black-owned businesses.

And a brother said, I had to fill out one application in whatever his suburb was to be a minority-owned business.

Then I had to do it with the city, Cleveland.

Then I had to do it with the county.

Then I had to do it with the state.

He said, "How many times do I have to prove I'm black?"

(Mayor Bibb and crowd laughing) And so the question is, when you talk about the bureaucracy, the brother just wanted to open a business.

- Well, this is why I'm glad our county executive, Chris Ronayne, is here.

Yeah, we gotta... We'll add that to our to-do list.

- Just check all the boxes on one application so he could get started.

And he was six months, eight months down the road filling out yet another application.

So Mr. Ronayne and Mr. Bibb, (crowd laughing) since you all are in these positions and we need more minority-owned businesses, make it easy so we can, you know, get boots on the ground there.

I think we're gonna begin to wind down, I'm looking, but I have one more quick question.

You made some really difficult decisions, and by the time you leave here, it looks like you're gonna have a few more.

(crowd laughing) The Cleveland Black- - Are you telling me I don't know?

- Yeah, right.

(crowd laughing) The Cleveland Black Equity & Humanity Fund is committed to providing equity for the black and other marginalized communities by addressing systems that created equity.

We all want the American dream, don't we?

I think you've really spoken to this.

We all wanna begin life with a solid foundation through family and schooling.

Attain a good job, buy a home.

We've talked about that.

Not a bad vision for productive life.

Can these things really, really be a reality for black individuals living in Cleveland?

- Yes.

I see it in this room, that's why.

- Okay.

I thank you Mr. Bibb.

Mayor Bibb.

We could talk for another hour.

(crowd applauding) I'll say one more thing.

I will say that when we did our Soul of Philanthropy programming, one of the places I remembered seeing him was when we did our Young, Black & Giving Back on a rooftop downtown.

And I remember him walking in, and this was way before he was mayor, and I'm like, "Oh, so you are young, black, and giving back, huh?"

(Mayor Bibb and crowd laughing) (crowd applauding) - [Mayor Bibb] Oh man.

- All right, we're about to begin the Q&A with the audience.

Again, I'm Teleange' Thomas, chief operating and relationships officer at Jumpstart.

Today we are hearing from Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb, and Connie Hill-Johnson, chairperson of the Cleveland Foundation, on the power of giving black to advance racial equity.

We welcome questions from everyone.

City Club members, guests, students, and those joining us via our livestream at cityclub.org or radio broadcast at 89.7 Ideastream Public Media, if you'd like to tweet a question for our speakers, please tweet it at the City Club.

You can also text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794, and the City Club staff will try to work it into today's program.

May we have the first question?

- [Member] In your first year, what is one thing as you look back that you would do the same, one thing you would do differently, and what was your biggest surprise?

- [Connie] That is directed to Justin, correct?

(crowd laughing) Okay.

- [Mayor Bibb] She gets off easy.

Gets off easy.

- The mayor.

- Let me go in reverse order.

I would say, the thing I would keep the same would be the sense of urgency.

Every day I wake up in my small little one bedroom apartment with no food in my refrigerator.

I...

It's one less day I'm gonna have an office.

And when I think about the gravity of the problems that we're facing in our city, it propels me every day to approach my job like tomorrow could be my last day in the job.

And so every day I wake up with the sense of urgency to move this city as forward as quickly as I possibly can as mayor.

I think the biggest surprise would be, I didn't think it would take me two days to get my email set up as mayor.

(crowd laughing) But that's an example of trying to modernize a 100-year old bureaucracy for the 21st century as the first new mayor in nearly two decades.

And culture change takes time, but we are trying to change the culture by biting off the elephant one bite at a time and doing everything we can to show the hardworking 8,000 employees of our city that they matter.

We care, we have your back, and we wanna work with you every single day to move our community forward.

If there's one thing I would change, it would be I spent too much time internally my first year, but I had to.

I had to.

Because so much needed to get done in terms of triaging the problems internally, hiring best-in-class management team, that I wanted to get out more in the community my first year, but hopefully I can course correct in year two now that we've gotten everybody in place at city hall.

- Mayor, thank you very much for the work that you're doing.

My fondest memory of growing up in Mount Pleasant was the presence of the village and the sense of community.

And we knew that the village and the community had very high expectations of us.

But today I have a sense that families are becoming more isolated and their sense of the village and the community is different.

So what advice would you give to young people today to help them think now about being black and giving back and actually making black philanthropy part of their DNA?

- Yeah.

Thank you for that question.

This is something I had to learn very early in my upbringing in this city.

You know, my mom always told me that I would be known by the company that I kept.

And at a young age, I was forced to navigate multiple worlds.

My parents got divorced when I was four, so me and my mom went to live with my Grandma Sarah on Dove and Mount Pleasant, and then my dad was in Shaker.

And so I was going back and forth during the week with my mom, weekend with my dad in Shaker.

And for a long time, a lot of the black kids in Shaker said, "Oh, he's too white."

But the white kids said, "He's not black enough.

He's too black," right?

And so early I had to learn that it's okay to be by myself, it's okay to lean into my own greatness, and it's okay to seek out friends who share your same values.

And I think in this society right now with TikTok and Instagram and that oppression that our children are experiencing because of social media and these expectations, they don't know what it's like to be an individual.

It's a lot of group think.

We gotta get back to the basics and teach our children they're great and give them their own collective voice.

And for me, that (indistinct) came early in the black church where I found my place early.

And so that'd be my advice.

Find your why early, learn to be okay with being by yourself because there is greatness that lies inside of all of us as young people, especially.

(crowd applauding) - Good afternoon, thank you both for being here.

I'm a return citizen to Cleveland.

I lived in both Atlanta and Washington D.C. During the time I was there, I did witness gentrification and what it looks like and what it feels like.

On my part, I was able to buy a home, and so I was able to stay in neighborhoods that gentrify.

Returning home to Cleveland, it appears that the land has been cleared.

It appears that there are new things that are happening and it's very exciting.

But my question is, how are we going to make sure that people who work for Dave's or the Rite Aid are able to have a pathway to home ownership?

On my part, Washington D.C. has a program called HPAP, which allowed people a grant of $60,000 to put toward... - You talked about D.C., and I saw that transformation when I went to college there at American University, because in 2005 when I was a freshman, you couldn't get a cab at U Street.

No one would pick you up and take you to U Street.

Now you got Ben's and a SoulCycle and Star...

I mean, it's just crazy.

And what happened in that part of D.C., you had some homeowners who, particularly black homeowners, who became very wealthy because of their home values going up.

Some got pushed out to PG County and other parts of that area.

Here's my thoughts about Cleveland.

First and foremost, we have a major issue around the missing middle.

We need more workforce and affordable housing in the city.

(crowd applauding) And so I spent a lot of my time trying to convince the legislature to give us more tools at the state level so we can have more tax credit and incentives to incentivize more workforce and affordable housing because we can only do so much with the LIHTC, current tax credit.

The other thing we're exploring that we need help with our banking partners is more capital for down payment assistance, particularly in, not only our middle neighborhoods, but our opportunity neighborhoods like in Mount Pleasant, Union-Miles, Lee-Harvard as well too.

I would also say targeted housing programs to support the public sector workforce to live in the city of Cleveland.

I think about offering a teacher's village for CMSD teachers to live in parts of our city with an access to a good quality home so they can live in the city where they're teaching.

Create programs like that are all things we're exploring right now at the city.

(crowd applauding) You're welcome.

Uh-oh.

- Uh-oh, uh-oh.

I'm glad you're changing the bonding things in the MBE, CBE.

Chris, you heard that, right?

Okay.

All right.

And get Mr. State of Ohio too, to take care of it.

But really, really, I mean, it's interesting.

Dr. Felton at UNCF, and I just wanna thank Mayor Bibb who reached out to me to be a sponsor for UNCF.

And as I looked around the table, my company I think was the only black-owned company that was on that level.

And I thank you.

We don't know that we can do that.

- [Mayor Bibb] Yeah.

- We don't know that we could be empowered.

If you look at the numbers, 59% of white folk are middle class, but compared to 8%, But 20% of blacks are poverty.

Dr. Felton said that the difference is, our client does not have that financial capacity, because at the HBCUs, the client are black folks.

They're black kids, they're black families.

Typically we give our tithings to churches and all.

How do we change the narrative of that when our income is incomparable to the folks that are around us?

What are some great suggestions for that?

- Yeah.

Well, I am not a expert in personal finance, but I would say one of the things that I learned early is you gotta start small and you gotta start somewhere.

So I remember I was right out of college, I was 22, and a older... A black mentor of mine said, "I want you to do two things.

Do a 527 for your future children for college and buy life insurance."

And it was so profound because as I've gotten older and I saw many members of my family pass away, we know you gotta pass the hat.

- [Connie] Pass the hat.

- Who can pay for the repass?

Who can pay for the funeral?

Because those basic aspects of financial literacy aren't in place.

And by the grace of God, I wanted to make sure my mama was gonna be okay if something happened to me, right?

And so it's important that we start to have these conversations about wealth building and wealth creation early, particularly for our children.

Our children should be learning stocks and bonds in elementary school, right?

How to manage a digital checking account in middle school.

I still write regular checks by the way.

(crowd laughing) But that needs to be at the center of our public education system so that as our children get older, they start to accumulate that wealth over time.

- Great to meet you, Mayor Bibb.

Quick question, as a business owner in Cleveland that I started when I was 19, I see a lot of people around my age that's getting older, they wanna leave and they want to go start somewhere else or take their ideas somewhere else.

My quick question is, how do young people with ambition position themselves to start having the conversation of staying in Cleveland with their plans and ideas?

- Well, I'm really happy you asked that question.

(crowd laughing) I see many folks in this room who supported our conference last year called Future Land to really make Cleveland (crowd applauding) a destination for black and brown entrepreneurs to start a company, 'cause you shouldn't have to go to Austin, Atlanta, or D.C., or Silicon Valley.

You can do it right here in Cleveland at the fifth of the cost you would do it in those other markets.

We're gonna have our second conference this October, and we're also gonna be hosting Forbes 30 Under 30 right here in Cleveland in that same week.

And so we're trying to change the culture as quickly as we can.

I would say don't give up, be a part of Future Land, be a part of the movement.

If you need help trying to get resources, reach out to me at city hall, reach out to Jumpstart or others.

But we wanna make sure we keep you, we help you grow, because we need you to succeed for our cities to succeed long term.

- Definitely.

(crowd laughing) - Sounds like you have (indistinct).

I don't mean to hijack the microphone, (crowd laughing) but what's the conversation look like for a 22-year-old to a 22-year-old or to the 21-year-old or the 19-year-old that wants to maybe leave after college or go to another state, city for college?

What does that conversation look like for me to them?

- You can go to Atlanta, New York, or D.C., be a cog in a wheel, you can be unique and different and do it in Cleveland.

- Definitely.

(crowd applauding) Appreciate it.

- Is that it?

- Hello, Mayor Bibb, my question to you is, what advice or words of encouragement do you have for young black student leaders on PWI campuses and how can we bring our community together to push some of these initiatives?

- I felt that one.

(crowd laughing) - [Connie] Me too.

- So, I used to go to church every Sunday with my mom, and I would get all my suits from Diamonds.

The old suit story.

Y'all know... Randall Park Mall.

- [Connie] Diamonds Randall Mall.

- I'm gonna give you context of why this story is so important, all right?

There's an end to this.

So I go to D.C., I'm at American University in Northwest D.C., a fancy part of the city.

I'm in my five-piece Steve Harvey suit (crowd laughing) thinking I'm looking...

Put my Gators on, thinking I'm looking good.

And me and the other black man I hung out with on campus, we had the same suit.

(crowd laughing) Their moms did the same thing for them.

We go to our first party at Howard and we were like, "Oh, we gotta... We're not doing it right."

(crowd laughing) So then I got the tailor suits, you know what I mean?

I tell you that story because I had to find my own community very early where we would study together, eat together, play basketball on Fridays together, go to church together, and we would hold each other accountable, and we would get involved, but we would also build that family connection, and that was the way I was able to survive by being one of the only black man in my degree program at American University.

So I would say find your community quick, make sure you you pour into them, cause they're gonna pour into you, and keep holding on and graduate because it's worth it at the end.

(crowd applauding) Trust me, it's worth it.

Yup.

It's your last question, I think.

- Uh-huh.

- Okay.

- Hello, Mayor Bibb.

How are you?

- Hey, hey.

- We have a text question.

"Black and brown professionals have overcome countless barriers to success.

Once there, we are asked to change who we are, conform, or speak on behalf of our community and our lived experiences, often without honorariums.

Donating time is a time-tested way black and brown communities give back.

We love to do it.

But at what point does generosity and giving time in this city cross the line into exploitation and tokenization?"

- [Mayor Bibb] You wanna...

I'm gonna let her take the question.

I'm not trying to get in trouble today.

(Connie and crowd laughing) (crowd laughing) - For me personally, it's long past time.

I think what happens, and Teleange' and I just said yesterday, if they don't leave us black women alone... (crowd laughing and applauding) Because we are asked.

And if you've got a level of expertise in anything and a skill and a way with words, and you're an extrovert like me, you are pulled on and you're asked to speak and serve and be on a panel and give back and give back again.

And my dear husband says to me all the time, "You continue to give away your intellectual capital without any kind of monetary compensation.

And so at what time, Connie, are you gonna say, 'What you paying?'"

(Mayor Bibb laughing) And so I'm just making a statement here because I've got to say to myself, no, I would be happy to come serve, I would be happy to come speak, I would be happy to coach you in your new business, but I don't have the bandwidth, the time, the energy to do that when I am already giving back at my church, through my business, through TSAP-CLE, at the Cleveland Foundation.

Somebody can pay a sister, if you want a little bit of what you see in me.

So that's my statement.

I just... (crowd laughing) - [Mayor Bibb] I'll be... You said it best.

(crowd applauding) You said it best.

(crowd applauding) Oh man, that's great.

That's awesome.

- Well, that is the note we are gonna end on, period.

(crowd laughing) So thank you, Mayor Bibb and Connie Hill-Johnson, for joining us at the City Club.

Again, a round of applause for them today.

(crowd applauding and cheering) Thank you as well to the Cleveland Black Equity & Humanity Fund for your partnership on today's forum.

Today's forum is the James S. Lipscomb Memorial Forum on the philanthropic spirit in community leadership.

James S. Lipscomb was the first executive director of The George Gund Foundation, chair of the National Council on Philanthropy, and was president of the City Club in 1980.

We are grateful for their support of the City Club and conversations on philanthropy that benefit our communities.

We would also like to welcome guests at tables hosted by Baldwin Wallace University, Beyond Breakthrough, Cleveland Black Equity & Humanity Fund, the Cleveland Foundation, Cuyahoga Community College, Delta... (crowd laughing) Delta Alpha Lambda Foundation Alpha Phi Fraternity Inc, Huntington, Ideastream Public Media, KeyBank, Our Hope, Our Future, Social Venture Partners Cleveland, and Youth Opportunities Unlimited.

(crowd applauding) Thank you all for being here today.

Next Friday, February 24th, Steve Stivers, president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce will discuss the Blueprint for Ohio's Economic Future, a comprehensive report that focuses on the key areas for economic growth and improvement for the state.

And on Friday, March 3rd, the City Club will welcome US Congressman Dave Joyce of Ohio's 14th District.

You can learn about these forums and others at cityclub.org.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you once again to Mayor Justin Bibb and Connie Hill-Johnson, and thank you members and friends of the City Club.

I am Teleange', and the forum is now closed.

(crowd applauding) (bell dings) - [Announcer] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(percussive music) - [Announcer] Production and distribution of City Club forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.