A brief article about a Northeast Ohio USA giving circle model, The Cleveland Colectivo, and it's practice of partnering with regional organizations for mutual success and sustainability.
Cleveland Colectivo Collaborates For Mutual Success
By Katherine Readey Chilcote, Co-Founder, Cleveland Colectivo
One of the things that’s really helped the Cleveland Colectivo be as successful as we’ve been, is our collaboration across some different partners in the community.
One specifically, Neighborhood Connections, which is an outgrowth of The Cleveland Foundation and is now its own entity, but they give grants to a lot of the same types of organizations that the Colectivo does and they also give small grants. We’ve done some nice cross promoting where they’ve been able to let their mailing list know when we are in our business cycle of asking for grants and asking for more people to submit proposals to us. Neighborhood Connections has been huge in helping us to get the word out and get more people to be aware of what we’re doing.
The other partners that we’ve worked with closely, one is the Foundation Center-Cleveland. They did a panel discussion where they invited members of the Colectivo to present our model and talk about what we do to a bunch of potential grantees. We had several people who attended that talk who actually applied for money from us and one of them was a recipient and then became a member. So, pretty cool collaboration there and them working with us.
One specifically, Neighborhood Connections, which is an outgrowth of The Cleveland Foundation and is now its own entity, but they give grants to a lot of the same types of organizations that the Colectivo does and they also give small grants. We’ve done some nice cross promoting where they’ve been able to let their mailing list know when we are in our business cycle of asking for grants and asking for more people to submit proposals to us. Neighborhood Connections has been huge in helping us to get the word out and get more people to be aware of what we’re doing.
The other partners that we’ve worked with closely, one is the Foundation Center-Cleveland. They did a panel discussion where they invited members of the Colectivo to present our model and talk about what we do to a bunch of potential grantees. We had several people who attended that talk who actually applied for money from us and one of them was a recipient and then became a member. So, pretty cool collaboration there and them working with us.
Another group that we’ve worked with across several different events which has been really fun to do, is The Cleveland Council on World Affairs. They actually invite delegations to the City of Cleveland and teach them about the civic work happening around town. As part of their tour of the different things going on around Cleveland, they’ve invited members of the Cleveland Colectivo to explain what we do and what our model is. A lot of the people who are on these delegations are doing a similar kind of civic work back in their home countries. These people are incredible and doing lots of different interesting work with NGO’s or even just small scale within their own communities. We’ve been able to share our model with them which is cool, because that makes us international. It’s been really fun to meet those groups and talk more about what we do.
“The Cleveland Colectivo is a Giving Circle. We are a group of community members most of whom live in the City of Cleveland, Ohio USA and we give small grants to organizations who are their very early stages.” - Katherine Readey Chilcote, Co-Founder
Another organization that we’ve worked with and try to cross promote with is Cleveland Social Venture Partners, which is another giving circle in town. They are a little more of a formal model in that they have an actual paid executive director and one or two staff members. The people who participate in that organization are giving at higher dollar levels, so I think it’s between two and four thousand dollars a year that the giving members pay. They give larger grants and their model is more about not only giving the grant but giving technical assistance to the organizations they work with. They only give to nonprofits, you have to be a 501(c)(3) status. So, they are kind of like in between us and a formal foundation that gives slightly larger grants and they really stick with that nonprofit to help them specifically with capacity building, that’s their focus area.
But because they are also a giving circle model and we are too, I’ve sat down several times with their Executive Director and shared stories and talked about our models and talked about how we can support each other.
It’s been fun to be a part of that larger civic work in the community and to have all these great collaborative partners.
But because they are also a giving circle model and we are too, I’ve sat down several times with their Executive Director and shared stories and talked about our models and talked about how we can support each other.
It’s been fun to be a part of that larger civic work in the community and to have all these great collaborative partners.
STORE: The Cleveland Collective Giving Circle Model with Katherine Readey Chilcote, Co-Founder Podcast
Katherine Readey Chilcote
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Katherine Readey Chilcote is a Co-Founder of Cleveland Colectivo. Katherine is employed as a consumer product marketing professional and change agent. She specializes in communications across functional teams to advance new process development, creative problem solving, and organizational performance. Connect with Katherine Readey on . "A spirited trailblazer spurring teams to bold frontiers."
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