Ohio City Dialogue seeks to help nonprofit organizations share ideas to help make community serviceagencies stronger
by Frank Barnett

(Plain Press, May 2010) A new collaborative effort in Ohio City, called the Ohio City Dialogue, has determined that 90+ nonprofit organizations call the neighborhood home. That surprisingly high number is easy to miss because, in what is most noticeably a residential community, many of the nonprofits are located in the many neighborhood churches-- and places like Malachi House and Providence House operate out of renovated houses. Ohio City councilman Joe Cimperman said, “We don’t just have nonprofits, but we have the nonprofits that I think are trendsetters in terms of caring for people.” and “…what happens when you get these individuals and agencies working together? We happen to think it will make them even stronger...”

The idea behind the Ohio City Dialogue is that there are many ways organizations can collaborate: sharing security watches; forming buying groups to purchase supplies in quantity; sharing staff and office space, even unused floors above storefronts; etc. Social service programs like feeding the needy could perhaps also be collaborative, as well as identifying more available and affordable housing.

Tony Coyne, a civil attorney who has been chairman of the Cleveland Planning Commission for 10 years and an Ohio City resident for about 23, is one of Ciperman’s collaborators on this project. Coyne noted that the Ohio City Dialogue project got underway when funding being considered for Ohio City wasn’t awarded because the neighborhood, though rich in social services, wasn’t seen as connected. Organizations down the street from one another barely knew each other. The focus was mostly on managing their own organizations and not necessarily looking at the neighborhood as a whole. “I think,” said Coyne, “our neighborhood is a wealth of such institutions and something we should be proud of. If you just do it in a different way, there’s more of a win-win.”

One of those Ohio City institutions is Providence House. It is the first crisis nursery in Ohio, trying to prevent foster care placements of children under 6 years as parents deal with homelessness, mental illness, unemployment or domestic violence. Providence House CEO and president Natalie Leek-Nelson, one of the leaders of the Ohio City Dialogue, said their first meetings made them realize they had more than simply social service organizations. “Everything from the bicycle coop to Lutheran Hospital, the range, size, reach and service was huge. We included education, arts, human services, medical, everyone that was qualified as a 501C3. Our first effort was to get them all in a room together. So we hosted a dinner this past January, invited all 90, and 50 actually came.”

In fact, Cimperman’s assistant Amanda Dempsey reports that, just from the 50 who have participated so far, there are 1600 employees, 73,000 clients and 5000 volunteers. These numbers will grow as the other organizations that couldn’t come to the dinner get counted.

Coyne noted that some neighborhoods like Shaker Square, Detroit-Shoreway and Fairfax have implemented significant master plans, though nothing like the kind of dialogue Ohio City has.

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