With Giving Tuesday and the year quickly coming to an end, your inboxes will soon be overflowing with asks for donations. With all the federal administration changes and the DOGE cuts there are lots of organizations that need your help.
This year, we’re urging Clevelanders to look beyond the usual lists and consider some of the lesser-known nonprofits whose missions are changing lives every day. Some of these organizations rarely have budgets for large campaigns or make the news, yet their impact is immediate and deeply felt.
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Honorable mentions
It should be stated that while this list will focus on some of the smaller nonprofits, with the recent cuts from the federal government and the direct impact for local families, we’re also highlighting the Cleveland Food Bank and Ideastream Public Media as organizations that need support.
- Ideastream Public Media
- Cleveland Food Bank
- Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation
- Stark County NAACP
- Playhouse Square
- Karamu House
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Cleveland Orchestra
We love what they do
- My Sister’s Keeper
- Website: www.myskcle.org
- Focus area: Health
- Official mission: …”to surround women undergoing cancer treatment with a supportive community.”
- Signature Program/Event:
- Fairhill Partners
- Website: fairhillpartners.org
- Focus area(s): Elders and intergenerational families
- Official mission: “Fairhill Partners connects people to opportunities for lifelong learning, intergenerational relationships, and successful aging.”
- Signature Program/Event: Kinship Care and Senior Services
- Kid’s Book Bank
- Website: kidsbookbank.org
- Focus area: youth and literacy
- Official mission: “The mission of the Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank is to foster literacy and a love of reading by distributing free books to children in collaboration with community partners.”
- Signature Program/Event: Stocking Little Free Libraries, providing books to children in schools and at local events
- Black Girls Run-Cleveland
- Website: blackgirlsrun.com/community/cleveland-oh
- Focus area: Health
- Official mission: “Black Girls RUN! wants to encourage African-American women to make fitness and healthy living a priority.”
- Random Acts of Kindness everywhere (RAKE)
- Website: rakenow.org
- Who they help: Black women with Breast Cancer
- Official mission: “…to support the community in a positive way. We want to enrich lives, encourage kindness, and promote the act of “paying it forward.”
A little more self-promotion…We’d love for you to donate to The Clenagers
- Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival
- Website: www.gcuff.org
- Signature event(s): Urban Film Festival at Shaker Square Cinema
- Official mission: The Greater Cleveland Urban Film Foundation (GCUFF) established in 2012, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation dedicated to (the) celebration, preservation, promotion, and advancement of African American arts, culture, and cinema.”
- Women of Color Foundation
- Website: womenofcolorfoundation.com
- Signature event(s): Leadership Summit and Retreat
- Focus area: Professional development and networking
- Official mission: “..to foster networking and to provide personal and professional development, education and training to women and girls of all colors.”
- Cleveland Public Theatre
- Website: cptonline.org
- Official mission: “to raise consciousness and nurture compassion through groundbreaking performances and life-changing education programs.”
Where our team sits on boards, volunteers, or donates
- Remember NHU
- Website: remembernhu.org
- Official mission: “…a nonprofit committed to Ending Child Sex Slavery Through Prevention.”
- Cleveland City Club
- Website: cityclub.org
- Official mission: “…to create conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive”
- The Healing Village
- Website: villageofhealingcle.com
- Official mission: “By focusing on healing and empowering the individuals in the village, we will work to eliminate social determinants of health and decrease health disparities through implementing programming, advocacy and collaboration.”
- Mended Inc
- Website: mendedrelationships.com
- Official mission: “To heal emotional wounds and transform minds by providing practical tools to restore broken Mother-Daughter relationships.”
- Tuskgee Airmen Inc- Northcoast Chapter
- Website: tuskegeeairmen.org
- Official mission: “The misson of Tuskegee Airmen Inc. (TAI) is twofold: 1) To PRESERVE the LEGACY of the Original Tuskegee Airmen, African Americans who participated in air crew, ground crew and operations support training in the Army Air Corps during WWII, and.. 2) To engage with YOUTH to inspire future careers in Aviation, Aerospace and STEM.”
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Website: clevelandart.org
- Official mission: “for the benefit of all the people forever,” to support the founding belief that museums should be places for inspiration and for creating wonder and meaning in people’s lives.
- The YMCA of Greater Cleveland or Specific/Local branches
- Website: clevelandymca.org
- Official mission: “…helping people live healthier, more connected lives”
- Literary Cleveland
- Website: www.litcleveland.org
- Official mission: “Literary Cleveland is a nonprofit organization and creative writing center that empowers people to explore other voices and discover their own….”
- Greater Cleveland Association of Black Journalists
- Website: gcleabj.org
- LakewoodAlive
- Website: lakewoodalive.org
- Mission: “LakewoodAlive is a community-centered nonprofit that fosters and sustains vibrant and welcoming neighborhoods.”
- Local Media Foundation
- Website: localmedia.org
- Official mission: …”innovative programs that promote sustainability of journalism and news media.” *LMF ia also a fiscal sponsor of Black Girl in CLE, which makes your donations to us tax-deductible
As you scroll through this list, we hope you’ll see what we see every day: local organizations, big, small, and sometimes overlooked, working hard to provide resources and keep our communities informed, nourished, safe, and connected.
Whether you choose to give to a grassroots nonprofit, support our local public media station, theaters or help the food bank meet rising demand, your contribution sends a powerful message: that Cleveland takes care of its own.
