Lauren Betenson

2016 Annual Report

An entirely reimagined Public Square opened to great acclaim in 2016. It was a delight to see the former traffic crossroads become a beautiful gathering place. In keeping with a long tradition of free speech on Public Square, demonstrators of many stripes re-christened it during the Republican National Convention. After that event Clevelanders flocked to the new Square to begin enjoying its many features and the new perspective it provides. In truth, however, the Square’s revival remains a work in progress. Not long after its opening, a complicated dispute arose between the City of Cleveland and the Regional Transit Authority over the future use of the Superior Avenue through the Square, and as of this writing in mid-2017, it is scarred by traffic barriers. Design modifications consistent with the quality of the entire space are being discussed but the outcome is so far unknown. On one level, this state of affairs feels like Cleveland painted a mustache on the Mona Lisa. The current, and, we hope, temporary condition is, as Mayor Frank Jackson readily admits, simply ugly. But on another level, the Superior Avenue issues are something of an extreme illustration of the fact that public spaces are often works in progress. They are, after all, public spaces and they should evolve with the changing needs and desires of people.

Striking the right balance among competing needs is rarely easy but the process should be a reminder that all of us have a stake in these spaces and that, like the democracy that we also share, we must find ways to accommodate an array of interests if public spaces are to live up to that name. These spaces have many values but the greatest is the simple act that they are public, democratic, open. In a time when some extol building walls, public spaces tear them down. As income polarization accompanies political disunion in America, public spaces remind us of our nobler aspirations for unity and shared values.

These may seem to be lofty ambitions for parks and other spaces. Indeed they are, but they are achievable if that is what we insist upon in our public realm. It does not happen by accident. The photographs of Matthew Pillsbury in this annual report depict a range of Cleveland’s public spaces. Some may surprise because they are not parks or even considered public in the usual sense. But a city inevitably and desirably includes such places as well as traditional parks and plazas. And in recent years Cleveland has augmented its portfolio of welcoming spaces as more people get out of their cars, return to the central city and celebrate what it means to be urban. Building that arsenal of great places deepens our commitment to common bonds even while the viewpoints freely shared there do not find universal acceptance. That is democracy at its most fundamental.

Public spaces do even more than that. Creating beautiful places for people is an essential part of competing in a global economy. Great public spaces attract and retain residents. They help fuel the interactions that spark creativity and innovation that are indispensable to economic growth.

We get these results when people-centered design makes them happen. Intentional programming and careful maintenance are also key. Examine Pillsbury’s photographs and you will see places that success and some that do not. Some spaces lack the human scale or amenities that make people feel welcome. Others are missing the access and connectivity that are needed to give them life. Cleveland’s downtown waterfront is especially limited in this way but the success of the Metroparks’ revival of lakefront parks shows what is possible The proposed bridge from the downtown mall to the lakefront is a vital connection that has been absent far too long. That is just one example of the work that Cleveland, despite recent strides, has yet to accomplish. That work certainly includes resolving the issues on Public Square. Among all of our public spaces, the Square’s historic and current prominence means it must achieve its potential as active, beautiful and welcoming to all—a magnet at the center of the city and a beacon of Cleveland’s contributions to that other public square of our democracy.

Dave Abbott, Executive Director

2014 Annual Report

Cleveland looks different from a bike. The city seems grander, but also more intimate, when you are perched on a bicycle seat. Architecture stands out. So do parks and streetscapes and the vast water resource on our northern shore. But you also notice smaller things — design elements of old buildings, individual trees and people on foot. You can move slowly enough to see the many threads of our city and fast enough to see the fabric they create.

Of course, it’s not all beautiful. Vacant lots and houses, scary intersections, litter — these and other less appealing aspects of the city palpably strike the bike rider. Someone driving a car can more easily zip past them without paying much attention. However, for a city lover, even these negative aspects of urban life are issues to be worked on, problems to be solved. And that’s why bicyclists become some of the city’s most vocal advocates. Bike Cleveland has emerged as our community’s organizing voice for bicycling, and it has been instrumental in our progress.

Cycling is a great way to develop a new appreciation for the city. And our city has made notable strides recently in showing appreciation of cyclists. Bike commuting in Cleveland skyrocketed 280 percent between 2000 and 2010, the largest growth among American cities. The city of Cleveland responded by adopting “complete streets” legislation to ensure that future street improvements accommodate cyclists. And in 2014 alone, the city created 9.41 miles of new painted bike lanes, a 103 percent increase. Other important projects are under way, like the long-awaited Towpath Trail connection to downtown Cleveland and the Lake Link Trail to Wendy Park. Plans are being developed for more bike lanes, including long stretches that are protected from motor vehicle traffic. Among the most exciting proposals are calls for protected bike lanes along Lorain Avenue, for a “midway” along St. Clair Avenue where streetcar tracks once ran, and for including a bike sharing center in a possible multi-modal transit hub.

That is all great progress. Yet more needs to be done. Why? Because in some neighborhoods many residents don’t own cars. Not all of them ride bikes but some do, and they deserve to have safe transportation options. Creating bikeways is one of the most efficient and equitable transportation strategies.

That notion of choice among modes of transportation is a key reason for getting behind the cycling movement. It helps to make Cleveland and its region more attractive to the young talent that demands options, and we need that talent to stay and to move here so we can compete globally. In addition, more people riding bikes instead of driving cars will help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, a third of which currently come from transportation. And cycling is great exercise; encouraging it helps promote a healthier lifestyle.

The growth of city biking is the most evident change in recent years, but cycling for recreation has long been promoted by organizations like the Cleveland Metroparks. And a few visionaries are looking far beyond, to a trail network that ties together existing segments all the way from Cleveland to Pittsburgh and on to Washington, D.C.

Whether or not some of us ever get on a bike again, we all gain from the economic and social contributions that come with the growth of bicycling. This annual report celebrates Cleveland’s cycling community with a beautiful photographic portfolio by David Burnett. People commuting to work, those making a living by selling and servicing bikes, serious racers and recreational cyclists participating in mass rides for fun — they are all depicted. And they are all part of the expanding cycling scene. We hope that these photos inspire many others to join the movement.

This annual report is the Foundation’s first since 1990 that was created without the input of Mark Schwartz, our longtime designer and photography maven, who died suddenly in 2014. We, like many throughout the Cleveland arts community, miss him and his larger-than-life personality, fervently expressed insights and warm-hearted generosity. We dedicate this report to him.

David Abbott, Executive Director, The George Gund Foundation

2012 Annual Report

More than a billion people lack access to clean fresh water.

From the perspective of water-abundant Northeast Ohio, that fact may seem almost incomprehensible. We are used to treating water as a seemingly inexhaustible, virtually free resource. Turn on the tap and there it is. But in many areas of the world that’s a dream, and even in arid parts of the United States, water supplies are strained. People there eye our water covetously. A pipeline from the Great Lakes to Arizona may not be likely, but as with most issues, it’s important that we keep the larger context in mind. It’s increasingly vital to take a global perspective and not just a local one. Indeed, the water crisis that afflicts large parts of the earth is expected to worsen as humankind dithers instead of taking action to address climate change.

Climate action is imperative for many reasons, and we who enjoy ample fresh water must not be complacent. Some scientists predict that Great Lakes water levels will drop substantially if climate change continues unabated. There are many things that we as citizens can do about climate change. We can, for starters, demand that many of our policy makers stop ignoring the overwhelming science simply because they don’t like what it says. But we also must pay special attention to our water resources and not take them for granted. Our region’s water supply is under stress from many causes, including renewed green algae blooms on Lake Erie and the massive water demands of the hydraulic fracturing boom. Immediate economic gain must be balanced by our need for long-term preservation of vital assets.

And in striking that balance there will be additional opportunities that could provide Northeast Ohio with both competitive advantage and an important chance to help address the global water crisis. This region has learned a great deal about remediation of polluted water since the famous Cuyahoga River fire in 1969 catalyzed a push for environmental renewal. Enhancing and sharing that expertise can help the world deal with similar challenges.

Many organizations that already are deeply engaged in water issues have joined forces under the banner of the Alliance for Water Future to share knowledge and spur innovative solutions to water issues. NorTech, the technology-based economic development organization, has mapped a cluster of existing and emerging companies that have the potential to grow the region’s water expertise. That capability can both create jobs locally and help solve water problems globally.

Why do we have this regional strength? Because the research and manufacturing capacity in our region, which at an earlier time primarily contributed to the pollution of our waterways, is turning more and more to solving water problems. And that brings me to the photographic essay that is featured in this year’s annual report.

Jeff Whetstone’s evocative images of the Cuyahoga River illustrate not only its winding route through diverse landscapes but also the history of the Cuyahoga’s development and our regard for this waterway. There was a time when we treated the river in a wholly utilitarian way. We used it to move cargo and as a kind of sewer to receive industrial and household waste. For that we have paid enormous environmental, reputational and economic costs. The 1969 fire began the slow transition to a new outlook. The Alliance for Water Future seeks to accelerate the transformation by nurturing collaborative action among universities, public agencies, companies and nonprofits. As Whetstone’s photographs show, the Cuyahoga will remain a working river for stretches of its meandering way to Lake Erie.

Yes, we must vigilantly work to restore the quality of the river’s water and Lake Erie’s, too. That effort would be greatly aided by overcoming the longstanding barriers that keep people from getting close to and seeing the water the way Whetstone has. Those barriers are beginning to fall away in and around downtown Cleveland where public access to the water has the greatest potential to stimulate economic activity by attracting people. Creative planning and authentic design should highlight, even celebrate, our industrial heritage and the muscular qualities of waterways that have an ongoing role to play in our economic life. And, perhaps of greatest importance, if we apply ourselves sufficiently to the task we can achieve a level of global leadership in addressing water issues that will surely grow ever more pressing.

David Abbott, President

2009 Annual Report

Sustainability is one of the bywords of the day. Despite the attention demanded by other pressing issues, each new environmental crisis forces more of us to recognize the necessity to live our lives in a way that does not diminish the prospects of future generations. While the urgency of this need is still recognized by too few, especially among policymakers, the overwhelming evidence mounts. We must change.

Cleveland’s place and potential in the sustainability story are unique, with an iconic river that empties into a lake system containing 20 percent of the world’s fresh water. Of course, the Cuyahoga River’s fame was acquired involuntarily with the publicity that attended a burning oil slick in 1969. And even before then, the popular press was declaring the “death” of Lake Erie from various environmental stresses.

The fire of 1969 was a relatively minor event, but it became a powerful symbol and catalyzed the modern environmental movement even as it came to represent the decline of Cleveland and the industrial Midwest. The fire ignited an outcry that questioned the nation’s stewardship of our natural resources and contributed significantly to the passage of the Clean Water Act.

Some Clevelanders would still prefer to forget the fire. But the restoration of the Cuyahoga over the past 40 years has become a remarkable story that carries its own potent symbolism. In addition, public attitudes have shifted. People are much more environmen-tally conscious, and there is even a growing recognition that the Cuyahoga River and the fire that made it famous give Greater Cleveland a competitive advantage if creatively leveraged.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson began the process of seizing that advantage in 2009 with a three-day summit conference entitled “Sustainable Cleveland 2019,” keying on the date that will mark the 50th anniversary of the river fire. The summit sought to harness thoughts from a broad range of people and organizations for creating a “green” economy. Ideas ranged from microfinance programs to a fresh water institute at the mouth of the river. These and scores of other ideas are yet being sifted. While the momentum of the summit is still to be fashioned into a meaningful force, its ultimate significance will lie in demonstrating that a place with the industrial history of Cleveland can transform itself. That transformation would be especially powerful in the home of the burning river because it would be so unexpected.

A vital element of Cleveland’s sustainability advantage goes beyond the remediation of a degraded waterway and centers on fresh water itself. The world’s supply of fresh water is under strain from population growth, climate change, unsustainable development practices and other forces. The social, scientific and political issues associated with preserving fresh water will increasingly dominate the world’s thinking. Cleveland’s perch on the shore of one of the largest fresh water systems in the world can be forged into a vast community and economic benefit if the proper strategic focus is applied. We hope the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 summit puts us on that path.

Because Lake Erie is so vital to our future, we revisit its shoreline in this year’s photographic essay. The lake also was the subject of the annual report essay in 1997. The images portray Lake Erie’s natural appeal, its all-too-common inaccessibility and its enormous potential. The metaphorical impact of the photos lies in the line they portray between here and there; we have too often, in effect, walled off Lake Erie and embraced it only fitfully. As Cleveland strives to move from the tenuous present to the future we desire, and to achieve leadership in sustainable values and practices, we must find ways to tear down that wall.

David Abbott, Executive Director of The George Gund Foundation

2007 Annual Report

University Circle is an amazing place. In a world economy increasingly centered on brainpower and creativity, the concentration of talent in University Circle is one of this region’s most competitive strengths. This fact does not diminish the importance of other talent-rich places, but the Circle’s cluster of assets–an incredible range of education, medical, scientific and cultural institutions–is unique. Although the institutions are themselves quite varied, together they represent a crucible of talent and innovation that is unmatched–surely in our region and in most places elsewhere. Consequently, University Circle will play an exceptional role in determining the future of all of Northeast Ohio.

A glimpse into the Circle’s uniqueness and many aspects of its beauty are captured in the photographs by Garie Waltzer in this annual report. We chose this topic for this year’s photo essay both because of University Circle’s importance and be-cause 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of University Circle Incorporated (UCI), the nonprofit organization principally charged with the stewardship of the district. UCI’s work and the Circle itself deserve to be celebrated. And doing so should strengthen the sense of ownership that everyone in Northeast Ohio ought to feel toward this special place. Yet, the intensity of global competition also demands that such ownership cause us to critically appraise even the best of our assets.

In all candor, the Circle has not yet achieved its potential. Insular planning by members of the Circle community has too often led to physical developments that turn excessively inward, impairing the Circle’s vitality and its connections with its neighboring communities. Most importantly, the neighbor-hood lacks the critical mass of housing, retail activity and street life that should be woven throughout the institutional fabric in order to achieve the Circle’s real potential as a place to work, live and visit—in other words, to be the talent magnet that we all need it to be.

UCI and many of its partners are deeply engaged in efforts to address these shortcomings. The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority and UCI are giving Euclid Avenue a total makeover, enhancing investments by University Hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic and others. Case Western Reserve University, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art and UCI are moving closer to creating an inviting cross-roads of activity at the Ford-Euclid-Mayfield intersection.

These and other improvements have been discussed, planned and advanced for many years. The clear lesson that should be derived from the difficulty of achieving success is that no single institution has the clout or the finances to get them done alone. As in nearly every other sphere, nothing of consequence can be accomplished without real collaboration, and even with it, the challenges remain substantial. In University Circle, UCI exists to be the forum for that collaboration, but its structure actually impedes the type of broadly based partnership that big things require. It was my privilege to serve as UCI’s president before joining The George Gund Foundation, so I know from experience the strengths and weaknesses of UCI’s organizational form. I remain hopeful that UCI’s members will soon incorporate the needed changes that will make their common table a 21st-century organization. The Circle’s institutions and their neighbors, the city of Cleveland, Northeast Ohio and, indeed, all of us who live and work here are depending on it.

David Abbot, Executive Director of The George Gund Foundation

2006 Annual Report

The photographic essay in this year’s annual report focuses on teachers, the primary instruments of education, an important concern of the Foundation since its inception. The significance the Foundation has placed on education is illustrated by grants of almost$27million to support the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD) and its students over that period and more than $95 million overall to education. While we have become increasingly focused on policy and funding at the state level, the Foundation also has been involved with all aspects of Cleveland’s public schools. For example, under the leadership of David Bergholz, our former executive director, the Foundation was involved in significant efforts on both the state and local levels that led to the takeover of the school system by the mayor.

It is a fitting year for a focus on teachers as the Ohio Grantmakers Forum, a broad statewide group of funders chaired by David Abbott, the current executive director of this Foundation, presented a report in December of 2006,“Education for Ohio’s Future,” assessing the current status of schools in Ohio and presenting a plan for future developments. The report reinforces the importance of a number of issues that have been long-standing concerns of the Foundation, including scholarships, preschool education and teacher and principal training. It highlights a number of areas that have special significance in the current environment in which education is being increasingly considered in a global context, including the continuing achievement gap between white and minority students, the need for accountability at all levels and the need for more competitive public education to ready students for postgraduate education and the work world.

As a Foundation, we will continue to address many aspects of these education issues and hope that, working with the current administrations in Columbus and in Cleveland, we can be part of positive change. Three areas of our particular concern are flexible schools, excellent teachers and meeting the needs of the whole student. We recently made a $150,000 grant to help create excellent new CMSD schools that will offer students with a range of needs and abilities educational choices and the content they need, as well as environments conducive to good education. This follows grants we have made to break down schools into a series of smaller schools to increase flexibility and meet the needs of individual learners. Our second important goal is to produce excellent teachers as there is evidence that high quality teachers who believe students can learn are able to raise students to higher levels of achievement. We will be working to establish a model for developing good teachers who know content and who learn from teaching placements what good teaching is while they are developing their abilities to do it. And finally, we will continue to work to meet the needs of the whole student—not just academic learning, but health and other needs as well.

In 2006, the Foundation took another step in its continuing mission of increased accountability by commissioning a Grantee Perception Report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy. This process, which we have been through before, led to a thorough review of the way we operate and reforms in the way we go about fulfilling our mission. A summary of the report’s findings is on our website, at www.gundfoundation.org.

At the end of this year George Gund IV became a Trustee-candidate. We welcome him to the Board of the Foundation.

Geoffrey Gund, President and Treasurer of The George Gund Foundation