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(upbeat music) (audience murmurs) - Good afternoon, and welcome to The City Club of Cleveland.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, Chief Executive here and a proud member and it is great to see all of you.

Thank you for joining us here today on October 1st we're in person for our forum today.

It's part of our Local Heroes Series, which is designed to recognize and hear from civic leaders here in Northeast Ohio who have an important role not only in our continuing community dialogue, but also often in our national dialogue about what matters, what's facing us and how to fix it.

The speakers represent a cross section of the brightest thinkers and doers whose hard work is changing the way we view ourselves and our community.

And so we'll be joined today by Tim Tramble he became president and CEO of the Saint Luke's Foundation in June of 2020.

If you didn't know that, then there was a little pandemic happening and you might have been otherwise occupied.

But he took the helm of that private foundation that has been investing in the neighborhoods of Woodhill Buckeye-Shaker, Mount Pleasant and throughout Cuyahoga County for over two decades now.

I should note that Saints Luke's Foundation is a funder and has been for at least 10 years or so maybe more.

Before joining the Saints Luke's Foundation, Tim Tramble, ran the Community Development Corporation Burten Bell Carr, and he also spent five years in various roles at the Cleveland Department of Public Health.

In the last year, the Saints Luke's Foundation has rolled out two very significant initiatives, Lift Every Voice 216 and the Resident Advancement Committee.

Efforts that shift power to those they intend on uplifting by involving the community in the decision making process to address racial equity, health equity and the transformation directly to their own communities.

I'll be moderating our conversation today but first, we're going to hear a few remarks from Tim Tramble and then he'll join me on the stage for a little fireside chat, and then Q&A with all of you.

Friends, and members of the City Club of Cleveland please join me in welcoming to the stage, Tim Tramble.

(audience claps) - Thank you very much Dan, good afternoon everyone.

(audience mumbles) Thank you all for your presence.

And I wanna thank Dan Moulthrop for inviting me to speak at the legendary City Club of Cleveland.

I am here as the President and CEO of the Saints Luke's Foundation to discuss our execution of our funding strategy, and how we intend to operationalize equity through community responsive grant making.

I commend our board and my predecessor Anne Goodman for aggressively centering equity in our strategy.

I am honored to acknowledge the talent and the commitment of the dynamic team I work with daily to breathe life into our mission.

We have here today some of our board members, some of our staff and some of the members of our Resident Advancement Committee.

I like for Ann O'Brien, George Mateyo, Patrick Kanary.

Ken Lurie, and Cathy O'Malley, and Zulma Zabala to please stand.

(audience claps) We thank you for your extraordinary vision.

I'd like Elizabeth Honold, Christie Manning Peter Whitt, Indigo Bishop, and Dionne Huffman to please stand.

(audience claps) We have accomplished so much in such a small period of time and it's because we are all in the same boat rowing in the same direction so I truly appreciate your commitment.

Finally, I would like to ask Toni Johnson I think I didn't see her here, Jack Hill, Bob Render, and Miss Adriana Rodriguez to please stand.

(audience claps) These are members of our Resident Advancement Committee and they are the engine that helps us shift power to the people.

They actually make the decisions for our community grants.

So we truly appreciate you for what you mean to our vision, what you mean to our mission and what you mean to our strategy.

With that, I'll say that the Saint Luke's Foundation has a 127 year legacy of service in Cuyahoga County, first as a hospital for 103 years and second as a foundation now in our 24th year of operation.

Today our endowment stands at $220 million thanks to a very savvy Investment Committee, led by Ann Pharaoh.

We are at the Saint Luke's Foundation are appreciative of our colleagues and the philanthropic community.

We had nothing but rich experience of collaboration, partnership, and peer to peer learning.

And those individuals and foundations includes Sue Krey and her team at the Sisters of Charity Foundation, Mitchell Bach and his team at the Mount Sinai Foundation, Ron Richard, India Pierce Lee Lillian Kuri and the army at the Cleveland Foundation, David Abbott, Alicia Washington and the team at the Gund Foundation, Cathy Belk at the Deaconess Foundation, Susan Althans at the McGregor Foundation and the list goes on.

We thank them for embracing us and for partnering with us.

It is important that when institutions talk about their history, that they do not leave out the practices of yesterday that contributed to the disparities that exist today.

That is essential and healing, reconciliation, and building trust within the community.

Like most long standing institutions throughout our country, the history of Saints Luke's includes an era of inequality.

There was a time when the hospitals separated its wards by race.

There are documented accounts of discrimination both against groups of African Americans and members and black patients of the hospital.

There was a time when job opportunities at the hospital and amenities each patient was afforded was based upon the color of their skin.

These realities are inescapable and undeniable.

But surely, if we can make it to where we are today from those circumstances, we can reach the destination that we seek upon the horizon.

See, it was in 2019, before the tragic death of George Floyd, before the tragic death of Breonna Taylor.

And before the biggest uprising of racial justice in our country, the Saints Luke's foundation in 2019, declared in his vision statement, that people thrive as a result of living free of racism and poverty, and experiencing equitable economic opportunities and conditions that allow them to lead healthy lives.

Such a powerful visions presents an abundance of opportunities for change that don't just show up in charts and graphs, but actually results in people that they can see feel and experience in their life altering conditions.

That is our inspiration, that is our motivation and that is what we aspire to, thank you all.

(audience claps) - So we're here now, I'm Dan Moulthrop here with Tim Tramble and if you're just tuning in on the radio you with The City Club Friday forum, it's great to have you with us.

We have a room full of fully vaccinated people Please give yourselves a round of applause for that.

(audience claps) We're just working on the microphone over here there was a little bit of an Oscar acceptance speech, I wanna thank, I wanna thank that's well done.

But kidding aside, Tim the stuff that you're doing around, resident voice, Lift Every Voice 216 and the Resident Advisory Committee.

I mean, can you talk specifically about operationally how this works, how it changes what the foundation is doing and the decisions the foundation is making?

- Right, so again I'd like to say before I started with the foundation, the concept and the vision of the Resident Advancement Committee was conceived.

And there was a movement and foundations across the country to really think about how do you really shift power to the people, and this is a concept, this is a an approach that is used nationally, where you actually create a group of residents, committee of your board of the foundation, who make decisions on where community grants go to, who are the recipients of community grants.

We have three types of grants, we have the community grant, the community grant is awarded to individuals, I should say, like, groups of the community that are not 501c3, so they're very small groups, they should know these individuals because they are individuals and groups within their own community.

We have discretionary grants that the staff make the decision for and then we have board grants where we have a board process, those are generally much bigger grants.

But again, it's an opportunity for community to be a part of the solution, to be a part of saying what we need, how we need to address the problems within our community, even defining what the problems are.

- How much, you mentioned the $220 million endowment the Saints Luke's Foundation manages so you're giving away roughly 10 to $12 million annually if my math is correct.

How much of that is actually directed by community members?

- Right now it's just $120,000 but again, it is for community organizations, really small, grassroots organizations.

And so the grants are generally five to $6,000.

And we have to build up the community's interest and awareness that these opportunities exist for them.

So in the first cycle, the first three or four cycles it was tough just to identify, just define individuals who actually believed that this was possible for them.

So as we build that interest in that momentum, and these change agents within the community, the amount will increase.

- So can you tell some stories about projects that you funded through that that wouldn't have been funded otherwise?

- Well, there are many projects, people ask me to-- - I know you don't wanna name a favorite-- - Yeah, I've learned, I've only been in philanthropy for a year.

But I've learned that you got to be very careful of singling out like your grantees and what is special I will just say that we are very excited and happy around what we see in the community in regards to block clubs, individuals coming together, neighbors coming together and doing what they feel is important on their block.

That is a very powerful thing.

We're creating that synergy and that energy where people now know and you're giving us a platform to let more people know that it exists.

And we're seeing significant impact and we're seeing people believing in the foundation and believing that this is a resource that's real for them, believe it or not, I mean, people it was hard for some people to believe that this was real.

- I know, when sometimes in neighborhoods that haven't seen investment to believe that like there is actual investment and you don't have to create a 501c3 to receive that that could be hard to believe I certainly understand that.

Tim Tramble, can you just draw the connection for us?

And I think, 'cause there's people in the audience and people in the listening audience who will say, well, that's nice at the front end block clubs, what does that have to do with social determinants of health?

And that's the mission of of the Saints Luke's Foundation is focused on eradicating social determinants of health.

- Yeah, so I appreciate the question and it has a lot to do with social determinants of health because when you're talking about social determinants of health then you're talking about really changing the trajectory of individuals, part of that what people have to understand is that the service of doing that, and the power of doing that comes with individuals themselves being involved in the service delivery, being involved in conceiving the ideas that will get them to the place that they wanna be right, to move them from a position of dependence to independence, so often and so in our history, we have had situations of just serving people and serving people and never stopping to think like, are we actually empowering them because if you help me today and then tomorrow, you have to come back and do the very same thing for me.

And then next week, you have to come back and do the very same thing for me.

That is not empowerment, right.

In fact it is subordination, right?

Where I have to support to you because I need you, right, so to truly empower people means that you do not do something that perpetuates your service to them and of course, with the exception of individuals who are truly disabled and can't do for themselves that is the only, sort of situation where that makes sense.

- So what have you seen that in the community, as a result of this, I mean, the Lift Every Voice 216 is, maybe you should describe that a little bit speaking about as if everybody understands what we're talking about, why don't we take a step back and ask you to describe what that effort actually is.

- So Lift Every Voice compliments the Resident Advancement Committee, Lift Every Voice it's a digital platform, where we make available to the community the opportunity to communicate to the foundation directly about what their interests are, around the social determinants of health, we do outline the social determinants of health in plain English.

And it gives them an opportunity to communicate those ideas and thoughts to us, regarding who served them, and who they see as the organizations that are most impactful in their lives and what doesn't exist, it should exist, right.

What we should lean more into and what we should pull away from.

We wanna give them that power in our evaluation metric, we are approaching our evaluation different, where we actually want to incorporate the lived experience in that evaluation metric.

So it gives them the opportunity to communicate with us, it gives us the opportunity to of course analyze that information and then to, of course, share that information with them.

And then for us to show them how we have responded to that information.

- So we shared a video prior to the forum beginning with the audience here.

And I mentioned it to the listening audience so they can find the video on your website most tweeted out right now and shared it on social media.

As you were going through with your staff and colleagues, were going through the information that was coming in from the community, Tim, was there anything surprising?

Or did it more just confirm for you kind of what you thought you knew about the neighborhood.

- So there was nothing surprising, but I'm going to this is how transparent I'm gonna be to you and to our audience, the biggest surprise is the amount of people that actually shared information.

We don't have as many people sharing information as we would think.

What we know is that there is 3000 individuals per day that are logging on to LEV216.org, but very few of them are completing or filling out the information.

And so that goes back to and we're thinking through like, okay, so what does this mean, of course, rejecting-- - It too much like a grant application, it's like it's too long.

- Right, we're revisiting that.

Of course, we are putting everything on the table in terms of what that is, but we think that it has something to do with trust, like, what are you really gonna do with this information?

Right, and so that's a part of what I spoke about, right, like, we gotta be honest about where we start from, we gotta be honest about where the community is, in regards to its perception of the institutions, right, and how they have served them in the past, we gotta be honest, and we gotta confront that, and we gotta address that.

And we have to build that trust within the community.

And again, you can't do that without being honest about the past, if you just talk about all of the wonderful things that happened in the past, without reconciling the things that have contributed to where we are today.

- So what is that?

What do you think the answer is then to because it's not just sort of about increasing engagement it's about rebuilding trust or is falling apart and building new relationships.

You can't do all of that through a web portal.

- Absolutely, so we do way more than just have that web portal.

We do more than just have that platform available, right?

We are doing a lot to show the community that we're really serious.

Our staff has walked the community, we've actually walked the community, we've biked community, with information about Lift Every Voice and why we're doing it, right.

We've had what we call a backyard barbecue within the community, to show the community that we really are interested in and this is real about what we intend on doing with the information that we get from them.

So it takes time, like any relationship, it takes time, like relationships are cultivated over time.

And it's not what you do this day is what you do, what you done yesterday, what you do today, and what you do tomorrow, right.

You can't just show up once and say, hey we did this.

So you guys believe us, right?

It's a process, it's gonna take time.

And that's the biggest surprise, it's gonna take more time that I will tell you, that I personally anticipated and I like to think that I'm someone that's rooted in the community, and know, so, that was even a surprise to me.

I mean, I've been a part of, survey collections.

And it's different and I'm understanding the difference, because I've been able to work with a team to collect, many surveys over a two or three month period.

And I thought, like what you know what, just the paper survey, we've been able to do better than what we're doing here, 'cause I just thought that we were gonna have like 10,000 people like just giving information, we have hundreds of people giving information.

So we are exploring, and we are asking ourselves those questions as to, it may not be one thing, it may be a series of things, right as to, how we get there.

And we also thinking about, hey, we know how to do this in a way where we get a lot of feedback.

And maybe there's a combination of doing this, because it starts with the survey.

And that's the thing people have to understand is, as you are completing the survey, because people are going, we know that people are going on there for information, and then they get this survey, right.

And so it's like, well, you want information from me, but I thought I was gonna get something from this, right.

And what we have to educate them on is what you get from this is the power to influence, right?

You have the power to influence and that is something that we know that community wanted-- - Do you see that influence flowing beyond the Resident Advancement Committee into the board directed grant giving and the staff discretionary grant giving?

Because that's where the, I mean frankly, that's where the action is, right?

- Yeah, so I gotta be careful about, saying where I see, things that are a board authority, right.

So I will just say that, my hope and I will tell you that our board has been awesome, I recommended this crazy thing, and they actually approved this crazy thing.

But, I hope that through the evidence of what information we gather, that this would allow us to move further and do more around shifting power.

- Tim can you talk a little bit about the service areas Saints Luke's Foundation, Buckeye-Shaker, Wood Hill, Mount Pleasant, what you have the possibility along with your partners in the CDC community to make some substantial change to the built environment there.

And to the economic conditions in which people are raising families and living their lives.

Can you talk a little bit about kinda where you see you and your colleagues can make the biggest difference?

- Yeah, so I wanna be careful about how I...

The reason why I wanna be careful is because we're telling community.

- Tim is walking on hot coals over here.

- Now so here's the thing, we're telling the community, we wanna hear what they have to say, and then I come in and I say, and I speak a vision that might not be consistent, or just just my vision, right?

So I do wanna be careful, like we're really sincere about what we hear, like we want to learn from the community and we want that to drive what we do.

So that is like real, but everyone who knows me, they know, I do have a vision for the community, right?

So I just wanna be careful about espousing my vision but at the same time promoting Lift Every Voice right here saying that, we wanna hear your voice, we want to follow your direction.

So, that's the fun (mumbles) - Give me the end, can be on both end.

- Yeah, it could definitely be above him, but I just wanted to make that clarification that there.

We are sincere and we don't already have all of the answers.

That being said for me, Tim Trambles vision for the community As that, we recognize that in order to be, people like to use the word community of choice, in order to be a community of choice, you have to be distinctive.

And you have to have amenities that are specific and unique to that community.

And you can't be a copycat, because if you're copycat, then those things that you create within your community, people see that in other communities that is their identity, right?

So you have to have your own community identity, I believe that there is an opportunity for our communities to be distinctive, and doing things that have never been done within... And I'll give you some examples like, there are innovations that are taking place in this world that, we're just scratching the surface on, but they are coming, right.

And so you have situations and things like the Tesla wall, or the Generac battery storage, right, where individuals actually can disconnect from the grid, have sun powering their home, powering the battery and then the battery, just like an electric vehicle, we all see that's on the horizon.

And in the next 10 years, we're gonna have more electric vehicles than we had ice vehicles.

So I think that recognizing the future and where the future is going and establishing that this sort of...

This community that has amenities of the future that is out front, doing things like imagine if we had geothermal heating in the winter and cooling in the summer, in a community a full community, right?

Imagine if everyone had a Tesla wall or Generac battery stores where we can disconnect off the grid imagine if we had that.

And the geothermal system was managed by people in the community, like these are things that no other community has done that would distinguish this community and not just distinguish it locally, but distinguish it globally.

- That sounds great.

(audience laughs) Well, I mean so is that like do you have but I mean, a foundation the challenge you have, right is that you're just a foundation, you've got money, but you don't have like, you're not running an organization, I can take that money and build that housing or rehab that housing to and create that, whole block that is disconnected from-- - And that might not be the end.

My point is that whatever we do, it has to give a neighborhood an identity, that's special, that's distinctive, that makes it that neighborhood, right?

Like we can think a neighborhood tree map, right?

You immediately have a sense, right, of who and what that neighborhood is, and it's a positive sense, right?

And we want you to think of you, we're here, we want you to think of Mount Pleasant, and think of something that is forward thinking, think of something that is distinctive in a way that others are interested in, that attracts others, that attracts people from our economic income classes, right.

We we want to do things that are not the cookie cutter that are just, sort of simple development.

But it does, I'm talking about things that the reality is that it requires, like really out of the box thinking.

And that's the good thing about a lot of the change that we see taking place today in regards to leadership and so forth.

- When I think about those neighborhoods, there are a tremendous number of assets that can be built on I mean, Buckeye - Shaker, you have Shaker Square, which is certainly at an inflection point.

And the Grand Mere neighborhood which is kinda thriving by by many measures.

You've got Luke Easter Park in Mount Pleasant.

- [Timothy] Absolutely.

- You've got a really successful permanent supportive housing right there on Buckeye.

And you have a lot of opportunity to reinvent retail there as well.

- [Timothy] Absolutely.

- I'm framing that there's another way to look at opportunity to reinvent retail is like empty storefronts.

But there is the infrastructure of a thriving commercial district that is not yet thriving.

So it does seem to me that there is definitely potential and potential to and not that.

When I say the word potential means like, oh, there's no asset, no, there's lots of assets there plus the rebuilding of Woodhill of Woodhill Estates, which is how many I mean that's a how many millions of dollars investment that's about to happen.

- Is 35 million that the Housing Authority is receiving from HUD, but of course, that is just a portion of what's gonna be invested.

So I would say at least I don't know the number I don't know the number but-- - It's a lot.

- I would say, based on what I know about the development you multiply that by five three.

- Okay, we're here with Tim Tramble, we're gonna get to the Q&A in just a second.

Let me remind you that this is part of our Local Heroes Series and Tim Tramble President and CEO of the Saints Luke's Foundation we're about to begin the audience Q&A.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, students from Morrinsville High School.

And those of you joining us via our live stream or the radio broadcast at 90.3 WCPN, Ideastream Public Media, there are primary media partner.

If you have a question here in the audience, we ask you raise your hand, and then our staff will direct you to the microphone, we don't wanna create a big backup at the microphone so one at a time over there.

And if you are unable to make your way to the microphone, just let the staff know and they'll bring the microphone to you.

If you'd like to tweet a question, you can tweet it at the City Club, or you can also text your question to 330-541-5794 that's 330-541-5794 to text your question, and we'll work it into the program.

See, we have our first question, let's go.

- [Marilyn] Yes, good afternoon everyone.

- [Audience] Good afternoon.

- My name is Marilyn Burns hi, Tim I just first of all, I wanna say I appreciate Saints Luke's Foundation for all the support that they have given me, as a resident and as a community leader.

My question is this morning, I heard to talk a lot about health deterrence, and social deterrence, how important to you is it about building the spirit, first of of community, we talk about foundations, when I think of foundation, I think about something that is being built upon.

And as you build on something, you have to first of all start with the spirit.

So let's talk about the spirit of communities and how important is that to you?

- So Miss Burns, I know her very well, and she is (audience laughs) she a matriarch of our community, we really appreciate you miss Burns.

Absolutely, the social emotional health of individuals is a part of the social determinants of health.

And it is one of the things that we have at social connections, and well being of our families as a part of our strategy that we support.

So it is one of those ingredients to success.

You can't have success of a community without having a community.

We used to have pride in our communities.

When I was a kid, my mom couldn't afford to send me to private school but all of my brothers before me, they went the wrong way, in junior high.

So she did everything she could to put me in Lutheran School, and the seventh grade, and I cried, I did not wanna go to Lutheran School, I had a sense of pride at that age of, I believe, 12 or 13, that I want it to be with my friends and my community.

And somewhere along the way we lost that I remember talking to my nephew about 10 years ago, and I had this pride to go to East High and eventually, eventually she was convinced, and I had to do with the cost of the high school to let me go to East High.

And, one of our friends told her that, he's going to do whatever he's gonna do either way.

So let him go to the school that he wants to go to.

I wanted to go to the school that I grew up seeing from my porch.

I saw East High I had pride in East High.

And my nephew, who's about 15 years younger than me and he didn't go to East High.

And I asked him, do you know why and he is no one wants to go to East High like we've lost that sense of pride within our community.

And I think that that's one of the things that we have to find a way to get back in our community.

I think everyone, I still wear my high school classroom regiments it's not just for East High it's for all CMSD schools.

I'm proud of every CMSD graduate as a CMSD.

(audience claps) We got to get that back in our neighborhoods and part of it in addressing the social determinants of health is building the pride of where we come from, who we are and what we've overcome.

- Next question.

- Our next question is a text question, how has your previous position in a Community Development Corporation inform how you lead in the philanthropic sector.

- So, I think that's evident, right?

Lift Every Voice, I mean it's the blueprint for community development, community development it's about, you can't work upon the people, you have to work with the people, right.

And so to be quite honest, what I'm doing here, other places in the country, (mumbles) development, executive directors are like, highly sought for bigger positions in Cleveland, like it takes a while you guys appreciate the the general work that it takes to lead a Community Development Corporation and to all my brothers and sisters in the community development field, fighting that fight, we we honor you, it is tough, difficult work.

But it is grounded on being connected with community and not directing, but following the voice of the community.

- Hi, so I first like to commend you for bringing some democracy and the voices of people that you're lifting into the decisions of these grant processes.

My question is, from what I've heard, it sounds like you're bringing the community voice into questions of who gets the money, are you also going to be trying to bring some of that voice into how the money is spent, a lot of the people that I've talked to who apply for grants will have a really cool idea, and then they get the grant funded.

And they get all of these earmarks on like, how it needs to be spent.

And like, here's your portion of the pie, and they're thinking, the person who's giving me this grant has no idea how this is going to work.

They're trying to pre spend this for me.

- Yeah, and so that's a fine line for the philanthropic community in general, right, is not being prescriptive.

Now, we have a strategy in community responsive grant making.

The concept of that is, from what foundations took their typical approach, there's two typical approaches there is responsive grant making, which means the foundation's are not prescriptive to the nonprofit organizations.

The nonprofit organizations propose, they inform the foundation of what the challenges are within the community.

And they present a solution and the plan and the foundation awards it, right.

And then there is the strategy approach, where the foundation has a strategy, and the foundation does prescribe like, these are things that you have to do most of the foundation's in Cleveland we have a hybrid of that, where we do have a strategy, we wanna address the social determinants of health, but we don't prescribe how we get there, right?

We look at the nonprofit community, the difference of what we're pushing in Saints Luke's is that, we don't just wanna look at the nonprofit community, we wanna hear from those who are on the ground who are actually experiencing, right, these issues within the community.

- Good afternoon, there are several different theories about community development.

One is that you wanna lift all boats that use money from public sector and philanthropic sectors should be spent across the city and politicians, campaign on that.

Another theory is that, the money should go where it can do the most good and most possibility for development, and that really by attrition that there are some parts of the city that maybe where money should not be spent.

I was wondering your thoughts on those two different theories?

- Wow, I say wow, because I really have some real out of the box thinking on that and I think my thinking might even be controversial.

- [Dan] I hope so.

(audience laughs) - Yeah, so I told you guys what I think that we should do, in our communities, like we should look to make each of them a special place to live, right?

And not just shoot for local special identity, but an identity that's like, world class, right.

And so I do think that we are at a place in some of our communities where it would be beneficial and it would create a great opportunity to rebuild I mean, to just clear and rebuild.

I know that's very controversial out there.

And I don't know if my board appreciate me sharing that but I actually, I do, I mean, there some street in some communities I mean, we've seen Detroit we're not as bad as Detroit.

But there are some places where you have one or two viable homes on a street.

And then if you go, it's 10 blocks, you got three or four, maybe seven or eight viable homes in a 10 block area, and we can do something to support those who are there, right, and make them a part, the key is to make sure that they are a part of the change, whatever the change is, but then you can do something that is like, really high scale really, just transformative within the community.

Because we try to like we just demolish, demolish and then we try to rehab and then we build a house.

The reason why lifestyle centers work is because it's all new, right?

And no one that invests feel like they're investing by themselves Kellems knows this very well.

He was a builder in Central, and no one I remember when I started at Burton Bell Carr and some very respected people within the community were advising me and said to me, truly they have you doing an impossible task.

They have you building homes, in the poorest neighborhood of the city, the only things that are surrounded , are the public housing estates, and cemeteries, excuse me.

So how are you going to get people to live there, the way we got people to live there is that we had 40 spec units being built all at one time.

And people saw the transformation of that, right, people invested because they knew they weren't going in alone, right.

And so when we build these, one here, one there, one here, one there, it's difficult to get people to see the vision.

And so that's how we made it work in the poorest neighborhood of the city.

But the poorest neighborhood in the city at that time had been just, I mean, there was nothing on most of those streets.

And I think that, we have to do a very similar thing.

- [Dan] You're up, sir.

- Yeah good afternoon, Tim.

Bob Render, I'm not wearing my rack hat today, I'm doing my community activist work.

So just for the listening audience, they need to understand that you did something that is unheard of.

Tim and 20 members of his staff were riding their bikes in the neighborhood.

I don't know of any philanthropic organization that got the senior staff had ever done that.

And he was doing what James Brown said, if you don't get involved, you got to get in deep, okay.

He is doing that he's putting his money where his mouth is.

When you ride the neighborhood I'm a precinct committee person.

If you walk the neighborhood, you see things that you don't see driving a car on lolly the trolley, you see it close up, you see the deterioration of the homes, you see the problems that people having day to day, I commend you keep that up.

My question is there used to be the bright and beautiful block concepts that were sponsored by CEI and the (mumbles) posts for 25 years, neighborhoods would compete for prizes, they would all go down to the, what's the hotel downtown?

- [Dan] Renaissance?

- Renaissance yeah, 1000 people will show up and they would have awards, money, prizes, trophies, I hope you will consider bringing that back to.

- Okay, yeah will learn more about it I'm sure you'll tell me.

Thank you very much Bob I do know, Bob, and he is a patriarch within the community.

Thank you very much for all that you do, Bob?

- [Dan] Next question.

- In the last primary, we had less than a fifth of the whole city coming out to vote.

And in your neighborhood Ward Seven, it was under 10%.

How can you take this community voice project and then parlay that into greater voter engagement?

- Yeah, that's a really good question and that is my staff, they know that like, one of our meetings, I actually brought that up, like, this is what we have to deal with.

And this is kind of, when we are trying to figure out what the issue and the problem is, right, it's the apathy that exists.

But we have to recognize why the apathy exists.

You just can't define the problem and don't define and figure out the cause of the problem.

There's a reason why people are apathetic to voting and to participating in things and that's why I said, we have work to do and it isn't a thing that you do today or do yesterday is a continuation of work.

Like Bob Render said we have to be out in the community, we have to show that we are sincere and we have to do things in action, not by talking, not by having a wonderful vision statement, right?

The key to the progress is in the doing, right.

It starts with the wonderful vision, right but the key to getting people to believe and getting people to be involved is in the doing and we have to continue to do that and we will.

(audience claps) - How are you doing Tim', good to see you.

- [Timothy] How you doing my friend it's a pleasure to see you here, Dr. Golden?

- I just have a question, I mean, there's a saying that says, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And so I'm just curious, you mentioned a lot of foundations in the beginning.

And you look at our communities, it has been a lot of money that's been poured into our neighborhoods over the years.

But you look at our communities, and we're suffering, right?

And so I'm just curious to know, in terms of scale, how do you because I mean, you can't argue that there's been some good things that's happened in our communities and neighborhoods.

But how do you take the Lift Every Voice and, because I love your approach, but take it to scale where more of the masses of people are benefiting, versus individuals or more of a micro level benefits?

- Yeah, I appreciate that and part of it is sort of recognizing what the history has been, right?

Because when we ask ourselves, think about all of the millions of dollars that have been poured into our community, and you ask yourself like, who benefited, right?

So if we change the answer to that, I believe that we get way more progress than where we are today, right.

And we do ask, are we actually that's an equity question in our application, where will the money land?

- Tim, good to see you again.

- [Timothy] Great to see you.

- My question is there seems to be a duality in the communities in which we live.

My family and I, we kept the inherited home so we have homes in Glenville in Mount Pleasant, and in the Les Miles area for purpose, because of our motto is instead of having someone, in our family pay a landlord, we might as well keep those homes in the family.

So in the communities, when people attain a certain level of success, they leave.

And it's not any fault of theirs.

But how can we build these communities if we lose so much of our dollars and our talent?

To the suburbs, which is totally their prerogative, but how do you see that?

Is it building the communities by finding talent from other cities states and bringing them in?

Or can we, fight the battle of losing people in our communities, and really building from within and like you said, keeping that heritage, that history and building on that from within?

- Yeah, so and I think your question, I mean, I don't have all the answers.

But I definitely think that we can do more as individuals and realizing that we have the power to influence our environment, then it has to influence upon us, that is something that, I'd say to young people, right, don't think that your environment define you, you can define your environment.

(audience claps) And so I wanna be respectful of those that do leave but we have to be for us that don't, for us to decide that we wanna stay.

We have to be those models and we have to tell that story.

I tell the story of living on East 89th off Cedar, I tell the story of how I've never been robbed right.

There are some people that have, that's all you hear.

You hear about all of the negative.

Our home have never been burglarized but that's all you hear about our community, I've been in my home, we've been in our home, we built our home 26 years ago, and we've never had that type of altercation and guess what, everyone on my street know that between eight and five, no one's there, everyone knows that.

But they are protectors, they are supporters, they are advocates, they are friends.

And that's why I say we have to get back some of, that old culture, village raised in a community where you have that, you have that stability.

Now, of course, we all know that things happen within our community.

And if you are doing the right thing, believe it or not those very people that perpetuates the negativity, they respect you and they see you as an asset within your community and you're protected.

But they have to know that you're real, and that you're there for them and that you don't have your nose up and that you're like thinking that you're better than them as you walk or as you traverse your community.

- Tim, is it from a community development standpoint, there isn't part of the solution, I mean, not so much about individuals and how they end their own posture towards their communities, but about the different kinds of housing opportunities that are available for people so that as their needs and desires change, there's something else for them in the neighborhood or in a nearby neighborhood, rather than in another municipality?

- Absolutely, but I mean, we don't have an absence of places that we can build, right.

I was only in my 20s, my wife and I, we were fresh out of college, and we built and that is a asset, that is an opportunity.

I mean, you -- - [Dan] Something you can afford (mumbles) that you can't do another place.

- That's what I'm trying to say, right, that you can't go everywhere, as individuals that are buying your first home and built right, and that's one of the few competitive advantages that we have, right, is that you can actually build a home, I mean, it's getting more and more expensive because of inflation and the cost of materials.

But I mean, you can build a quality home in the city of Cleveland, because you don't have to pay for the land for $200,000.

I know for some that sounds like a lot of money, but you go to other places, and you're paying $200,000 for someone that lived in a home for 50 years.

- Hey, I wanna actually address a question there that you raised in my head as part of the board for Saints Luke's when you asked if the spirit of Lift Every Voice is actually also something that transfers into making decisions around bigger grants by the board.

And I'm going to say yes, just yesterday, we unveiled the breaking of the moon together and play for Eastern neighborhood house, a project that we've been working on for forever.

And the Saints Luke's Foundation was actually really responsible for moving that needle forward by making the biggest contribution and investment for that park to happen.

So, it's really important that the leadership of the organization is actually driving the same motor for Lift Every Voice to bigger decisions.

But with that, I also wanna ask Tim, how do we then engage other funders, not just within the foundation world, but specifically around the public sector to see the value of, again, not just granting grants to organizations to put out outputs?

And sometimes outcomes based on, their own directive.

But how do we get other funders to understand the value of seeing was necessary and the community that we may have an idea, to serve as a community, and we have input and expertise.

So to also see us in the makeup on how do we implement that?

'Cause I think that's what's Saint Luke's Foundation is doing, how do we get other funders to join in that effort to make that happened?

- So my sincerely appreciate you, helping me, right and bringing to the forefront that we have this philosophy that permeates not just with the community grants, but throughout all of our grants.

Thank you very much and I should have made that point earlier.

I appreciate you getting up to make sure that people understand that it's not a place for how we are looking to operationalize equity in every area of our grant making, so thank you very much.

- Tim Tramble give him round of applause please.

(audience claps) - Our forum today is part of our Local Heroes Series which we present in partnership with Citizens Bank and Dominion Energy.

We welcome guests at tables hosted by East and Neighborhood House, Jordan Community Resource center Legal Aid Society of greater Cleveland Mental Health Foundation, Neighborhood Leadership Institute Policy Matters Ohio, Saints Luke's Foundation and Warrensville Heights High School, we're happy to have you all here.

Join us next Friday for a forum presented in partnership with the Deaconess Foundation called Preparing For the Jobs of Tomorrow.

Tickets are still available I hope you can join us for that.

And tune in Monday, October 11th for our general election debate in the mayor's race, that we are presenting in partnership with our friends at Ideastream Public Media that will air at 7:30pm on WVZ on WCPN 90.3 also on Ideastreams website also on our website cityclub.org.

And the following that we'll have one on one conversations with both of the candidates on October 13th and the 14th.

More information on our website cityclub.org, friends that's the end of our forum thank you for being a part of it, our forum is adjourned.

(audience applauds) - [Timothy] Thank you sir.

- [Dan] Well done.

- [Announcer] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

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