The Foundation made grants totaling about $20 million in 1993. Included was an important contribution to Inventure Place in Akron. This new facility, which will also house the Inventors Hall of Fame, with its educational and outreach programs, will add significantly to the region’s visitor attraction capacity. Coupled with the Cleveland-based Great Lakes Science Center, to be opened in 1996 and also supported by the Foundation, these two remarkable enterprises will create an unequaled science education resource for our citizens. The Foundation’s contribution to Inventure Place’s Cleveland fundraising campaign also does much to encourage an enhanced sense of regional destiny in northeastern Ohio and to allay the ongoing and somewhat justified perception that the Cleveland civic and philanthropic communities have not supported Akron projects to the same extent that Akron does for Cleveland-located endeavors.

This report highlights our ongoing grantmaking in the areas of family support and self-sufficiency through the powerful photographs of Dawoud Bey. His sensitive and bold portrayals of Cleveland families involved with the Cleveland Works and Cleveland Housing Network programs, both Foundation grantees, give one a sense of the pride and resolve displayed by these families who are determined to better their lot through satisfying work and home ownership.

During 1993, the Foundation financed an evaluation of our early support of family self-sufficiency projects. This evaluation provided carefully documented, cautiously optimistic encouragement to the continuation of these efforts.

1993 also signaled the organization of the Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest. This enterprise, one that emerged as the outcome of an earlier feasibility and planning grant award by the Foundation in 1992, will work on energy efficiency and transportation issues in the Great Lakes watershed. The Foundation joined with the Mott, Joyce, Kellogg and Energy Foundations in the providing the start-up support for this potentially important regional enterprise.

The Foundation also continued its support of Cleveland school system improvement. We were heartened by the election of education reform candidates to the Board of Education and the commitment of Cleveland’s new school superintendent to the enhancement of educational outcomes for the students served by the district. The Board and the Superintendent put forth a bold new district-wide educational plan, aptly entitled Vision 21, and the Foundation has provided support during 1993 to help to begin to make that plan a reality. The state of Arts education in the district received special consideration with a Foundation-led coming together of six local philanthropies to support a study of the current situation and to plan for future improvements.

In the area of higher education, the Foundation continued its support of innovative programs to recruit and retain minority and non-traditional students with grants to Mount Union College and the Lorain Community College Foundation. Our continuing interest in prejudice reduction was expressed through grants to the Anti-Defamation League and the UNITY project at Cleveland Heights High School. Gun control and community policy initiatives were represented in our grantmaking program as a part of our developing agenda in “civility.” Finally, the Foundation continued its long-term commitment to basic research on degenerative retinal diseases through its allocation of $1.5 million for the support of 14 university-based basic science projects.

1993 has been a productive year. The grantmaking outlined in the report best describes the priorities and interests of our trustees and staff as we jointly attempt to respond to the changing world around us. I hope you will review our work carefully. We take great pride in what we do and hope you share in our enthusiasm for our work.

David Bergholz, Executive Director