Gina Yonko

Alerting an organization of a planned gift before death has many benefits for donors and organizations alike.

According to Joel Fox, chief development officer at the Menorah Park Foundation in Beachwood; Charles Miller, senior director of gift giving at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland; Kayla Naticchioni, external relations manager at Providence House in Cleveland; and Amanda Pinney, executive director of development and engagement at the Tri-C Foundation in Cleveland, it’s not uncommon for gifts to pop up after death.

“In my experience, it’s much more common than you’d think to receive a gift we didn’t previously know about,” Naticchioni said. “The more established relationship we have with the donor, the more they tell us. However, there are still many donors that do not disclose that. In that case, we always love a happy surprise.”

Fox added, “It depends on the definition of ‘common,’ but we do get a few gifts every year that we didn’t know about. We have many donors that alert us that we’re in their estate plan but choose not to share the details.”

Miller said these surprise gifts used to be more common than they are now. Under the old planned-giving model, many organizations avoided conversations about legacy giving.

“Fundraisers feared estate planning was too delicate and personal to discuss with donors,” he said. “As a result, it seemed like legacy gifts fell from the sky. … Today, talking to donors about ways to support a favorite charity is both common and essential for organizations of all sizes. This conversation about an estate gift helps donors become philanthropists.”

Not disclosing a gift before death can affect the way the gift is used.

“Both the intent and purpose behind a gift are incredibly important to the receiving institution,” Pinney said. “Surprise or unknown gifts that contain difficult restrictions may affect the institutions’ ability to maximize the use of the intended gift.”

Miller added, “While a charitable organization wants to achieve or exceed expectations, the ability to comply with a donor’s estate plan may be limited by the federal or state law, as well as by the charity’s internal governing documents. Ideally, a donor and charity should fully discuss objectives (and) priorities, and confirm mutual understanding.”

Naticchioni agreed, adding disclosure also allows organizations to honor donors for their gifts.

“It’s important for donors to disclose intended gifts before death because it allows us to recognize their support and understand how they want the gift to be utilized,” she said. “It also encourages others to give to leave a longstanding legacy.”

Disclosing gifts also allow organizations to plan for the future.

“Just as you, the donor, feel the need to create a plan for the future, our organizations need to be planning for the future,” Fox said. “So, if we know that a certain service will someday be permanently endowed, then we know better how to structure our services today.”

That said, receiving surprise gifts is not all bad for an organization.

“The Tri-C Foundation often receives gifts from previously unknown donors,” Pinney said. “Frequently, we can create a new endowed scholarship fund in the donor’s name or support an existing endowed fund that will benefit students directly. This allows us to simultaneously honor a donor’s legacy and also help alleviate financial hardship on our students.

“Having the flexibility to use a surprise gift to fill this need could make a critical difference.”

Disclosing a gift is as easy as talking with an organization’s development team.

“Donors should be strategic regardless of the gift amount,” Miller said. “Ask your favorite charities for ideas. Visit them. … Partner with the charity’s professional development staff to design a gift agreement to memorialize a mutual understanding of your gift plan.”

Naticchioni added, “Individuals should start the planned giving process by speaking to nonprofits that they want to support and building their relationship. Nonprofits are happy to sit down and discuss to ensure maximum benefits and legacy in his/her name.”

There are many amazing nonprofits in Northeast Ohio, and Providence House is chief among them. Founded in 1981, the nonprofit is a crisis nursery, meaning they provide emergency shelter and intervention to children in need, and then work to help families stay together by connecting them to community resources.

“We’re dealing with these amazing women who are bringing the most precious treasure in their life to complete strangers and saying, ‘I am going to lose my children’ or ‘They’re going to be harmed’ or ‘We are unsafe, and I need help,'” says Natalie Leek-Nelson, president and CEO of Providence House. “We start with such a deep level of respect for these women who have struggled daily to feed their children, shelter their children, educate their children and deal with their own adult crises.”

Photo Courtesy of Providence HouseFor the last four years, Providence House has been a major partner agency of the United Way of Greater Cleveland. “United Way started to fund us to shelter children who could not find shelter or housing with their families, and then really got on board with our family preservation work,” Leek-Nelson says. But in addition to having a financial relationship, the two partners have found valuable common ground—and a deeper relationship—by having conversations acknowledging the complexities of the poverty faced by Providence House’s clients.

“Places like United Way and Providence House and other partners that they have are really peeling away the layers around poverty and saying, ‘You have to understand—it’s generational,'” Leek-Nelson says. “A lot of our families are in poverty because policy is holding them back.”

A Strategic Pivot

While the United Way of Greater Cleveland has always been known for its progressive attitude, framing poverty as a systemic issue, and having conversations about what that means for the community, illustrates a new direction for the organization. Going forward, the United Way of Greater Cleveland is dividing its work into two distinct prongs: supporting services that address the symptoms of poverty, and also working to tackle the underlying causes of poverty.

Accordingly, in early June, the organization announced a strategy pivot that positions itself as a “collaborator, convener, advocate and investor” in the region’s tactics for tackling poverty. While the United Way of Greater Cleveland will invest the same amount of money ($31 million) in the community going forward, it plans to streamline where these funds are going, and focus on investing in the programs, agencies and services dedicated to providing comprehensive (or wraparound) support to those in need.

“Poverty is incredibly complex,” says Nancy Mendez, vice president of community impact at United Way of Greater Cleveland. “One program hit and miss here and there is not going to do it. If you really want to have significant change in the person, in the individual in her neighborhood, we have to be much better at coordinating the right services at the right time around that individual and her family.”

Where addressing symptoms is concerned, the United Way’s solution is what they’re calling the Community Hub for Basic Needs, which comprise organizations in the community committed to addressing things such as homelessness, addiction, violence, hunger, and unemployment—all of which are symptoms of poverty. Accordingly, the Hub’s offerings go “way beyond food and shelter,” Mendez notes, and encompass substance abuse treatment, GED or literacy classes for adults, or counselors for children who have been abused.

“To us, that’s basic needs,” Mendez says. “That’s just dignity. That’s just respect. That’s just the most basic things that every individual in this country deserves. And we know that individuals that are living in poverty tend to need a combination of several of these programs wrapped around them.”

The United Way has also started focusing more on prevention-geared initiatives and programs that are trying to make long-term changes and break the cycle of poverty by addressing systemic issues. These issues, which are dubbed “root causes,” include access to quality healthcare, childhood trauma, access to quality education, racism, public policy, and access to quality housing.

Unsurprisingly, these root causes of poverty are also intertwined. “It’s easy to say, ‘Well these are homeless families,’ but that’s just a symptom of a lot of other things going on for a family to become homeless—whether it’s mental health disorders or addiction or underemployment [or] undereducation,” says Leek-Nelson. “We always say, parenting poor doesn’t mean poor parenting.”

The United Way’s initiatives reflect this interconnectedness. Projects such as the recent Lead Safe Home Summit, and new initiatives such as the Impact Institute—a think tank dedicated to creating solutions for these root causes—are tailored to offer comprehensive strategies. Additionally, the United Way is also working with its existing community partners to achieve these diverse goals.

For example, the organization chose the nonprofit affordable housing developer and housing service provider CHN Housing Partners—to which it’s previously provided grant support for various programs, including one that helps Lease Purchase residents prepare to move from being renters to homeowners—to be the local service provider for the national Seimer Institute’s Family Stability initiative.

This initiative, which aims to improve educational performance by stabilizing the housing in Cleveland’s wrap-around schools, has been so successful that CHN and United Way are “working together with the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland to strengthen the local response to the devastating impact of evictions on the economic stability of low-income Clevelanders,” says Kate Monter Durban, CHN Housing Partners’ assistant director.

Photo Courtesy of Providence HouseA More Direct Effort

In response to changing technology and workforce demographics, the United Way of Greater Cleveland’s approach to fundraising—and how the organization talks about its work—has also evolved.

Traditionally, their major donation model involved a workplace-based campaign that took place across several months. “We were kind of the middle man between the nonprofit world and the corporate world,” Mendez says. “They gave money to us, and we gave it right back to people doing great work in the community.”

However, today these campaigns raise fewer dollars due to corporate consolidation and shifting consumer giving habits. For example, technology now allows to people to donate to their chosen charities with a simple click of a button or text message. “They don’t need someone to come to their job and set up a way for them to give back to the community,” she says. “They are empowered to do it themselves.”

As a result, the United Way is pairing these office campaigns with a robust (and ongoing) community-oriented campaign that’s also aiming to bring in funds. In the process, the organization’s tone is also becoming much more direct. Its marketing language sheds euphemisms—for example, saying “hunger” instead of “food insecurity”—and shares striking data points to create urgency around poverty, such as 1 in 5 local kids are food insecure.

Being blunt is helping raise awareness of the community’s challenges, which Leek-Nelson thinks is crucial. In fact, the United Way’s “advocacy platform is just as important as their funding platform,” she says, in no small part because these conversations are moving the needle.

“[People are] no longer talking about singular issues. Finally, we’re starting to understand the inter-connectedness of these individual crises, and that most of them are being created because families have lived in poverty, do live in poverty, [and] don’t have access to financial and even most basic needs for themselves and their children.”

This directness also reinforces the United Way’s ability to galvanize multiple nonprofits and agencies to induce change. “We are no longer up a pass-through or passive organization,” Mendez says. “We want to be a leader in the community when it comes to combating poverty, breaking the cycles of generational poverty. We then need to have a voice. We need to be much bolder and much more direct when we do that.”

After funding the construction of the outdoor basketball court at Providence House in 2012, the Cavaliers teamed up with their partner Rust-Oleum to recently renovate the court for the many Cleveland-area children that utilize it. The two organizations provided a new hoop, painted the court and surrounding sidewalk, bench and fence.

The Cavs and Providence House officially unveiled the refurbished court on Thursday.

Cavs Vice President of Global Partnerships, Shelly Cayette, joined Providence House CEO & President, Natalie Leek-Nelson, to speak to the guests in attendance, including staff and children from Providence House. Cavs in-arena host Ahmaad, Cavs Legends, Scream Team members and mascots and were also on-hand to entertain the kids. After a ribbon cutting the kids were able to play on the updated court.

COMMUNITY

The Cavs and Rust-Oleum also presented a check to Providence House for $10,000 for their Children’s Educational Enrichment Program. Through the initiative, Licensed Social Workers work alongside Providence House staff to plan daily lessons, activities, and community field trips to enhance early learning skills, reinforce developmental milestones, focus on school readiness, and provide children with positive exposure to their community.

About Providence House:
Providence House protects at-risk children (newborn through twelve years old) and supports families through crisis, strengthening communities to end child abuse and neglect. They are Ohio’s first and one of the nation’s longest operating crisis nurseries. Providence House has cared and advocated for 8,000 children and families throughout their 37-year history, including more than 300 children last year alone. They use a two-generation approach focused on both the child and their caregiver(s) delivered through a holistic, integrated program focused on both child abuse prevention and family preservation. They are Cleveland’s only free, voluntary, non-custodial program designed to protect at-risk children in emergency shelter when parents are not able to care for them due to crisis situations. For more information: https://www.provhouse.org/

The children who come through Providence House—a crisis nursery providing free, voluntaryemergency shelter to children living in crisis situations where they are at risk of abuse or neglect—have enough going on in their worlds without having a quiet, relaxing place to think, reflect, or just be alone.

Last week, Valley City-based landscape tool manufacturer Troy-Bilt sent six gardening experts to Providence House on W. 32nd Street to help revive the facility’s sensory garden as a place where even the youngest clients can take a peaceful time out.

The experts took a triangular plot of land with raised beds zig-zagging around the garden and transformed it into an inviting haven for the children—as well as staff and volunteers—to stimulate each of the five senses.

“This is a really great opportunity for our kids and parents,” says Kaylee Quanbeck, Providence House’s events and marketing coordinator. “When parents bring their kids here, they are dropping off and trusting us with their most precious possessions. We always want it to feel like home, not like an institution. These will be the touches that make a difference.”

The gardeners installed latticework fencing; planted fragrant, colorful plants like lilac, lilies, and herbs; and mixed them with edible tomato, pepper, and onion plants.

“We tell them, ‘This is a pizza garden,’” says Barb Roueche, Troy-Bilt brand manager. “Come out and pick your toppings.” The team also planted pumpkins, so this fall, kids will have access to a fun arts-and-crafts project.

Nothing in the sensory garden has thorns, burrs, or anything else that can potentially harm the children, and everything is deer-resistant, according to Roueche, but they also kept the staff in mind with the plantings.

“Everything we planted are perennial, so they will come back every year,” she says. “We didn’t want it to have too much maintenance, so we were careful on what we chose so that we didn’t add to the Providence House staff [responsibilities].”

Additionally, Roueche notes a small area in the back corner of the garden that had gone particularly unattended. The group took that patch and installed a bird bath, Adirondack chairs, and pollinator plants to attract birds and butterflies—creating a reflective space in the sensory garden.

“You are one step removed from what’s actually going on,” says Roueche. “I would guess there are times when you need alone time, but you don’t really want to be alone. This is a place to regroup and get a little quiet time.”

The transformation took about four hours, but Roueche was just happy any planting was completed, given the wet weather Cleveland has been having. “After about a week of watching the weather reports and wondering if we would be able to plant anything at all, or if we’d be under water, I don’t think we could have scripted it better,” she says.

Troy-Bilt has used its group of national experts—Erin Spain, Serena Appiah of Thrift Diving, Sarah Fogle of Ugly Duckling House, Eric Rochow of GardenFork, Mary Nielson of The House that Lars Built, and Rochelle Greayer of Pith + Vigor —for the past eight years on community gardening projects with organizations that need help maintaining and beautifying their outdoor spaces.

Quanbeck says the kids at Providence House love the new sensory garden. “They were looking at all the different kinds of plants and the bird bath,” she says. “One of our staff members commented on how calming it was for some of our kids.”

By Roxanne Washington, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Children sheltered at Providence House in Ohio City are enjoying a sensory garden filled with colorful perennials that soon will bloom, fragrant plants, vegetables, a birdbath and more, thanks to a Greater Cleveland lawn and garden power equipment manufacturer, and six garden and DIY experts who flew in from all over the country.

“It will be wonderful to kick off summer with a really great space for our kids to enjoy all the way into the fall,” said Kaylee Quanbeck, Providence House events and marketing coordinator.

Providence House, on West 32nd Street, shelters children newborn to 12 whose families are undergoing a crisis, such as homelessness, domestic violence or addiction. The 38-year-old nonprofit can shelter as many as 30 children at one time.

Troy-Bilt, in Valley City, which is south of Strongsville, helmed the garden project, providing all of the plants and accessories, and flying in the designers for their expertise. Troy-Bilt is owned by MTD Products.

A sensory garden engages sight, smell, touch, taste and sound, explained Barbara Roueche, Troy-Bilt brand manager. The garden includes daylilies in a variety of colors, shasta daisies, cone flowers, a lilac bush, yarrow – which can bloom into fall – and evergreens such as boxwood and juniper. There’s also a pumpkin patch, a birdbath and bright red Adirondack chairs.

Vegetable beds include tomatoes, peppers and herbs.

“We call it a pizza garden for kids,” said Roueche.

Kids can help harvest vegetables and herbs when the time is right, added Quanbeck. “It will be great to show them how food is grown,” she added.

Troy-Bilt has funded the installation of other gardens at nonprofits, but this is the first one in Cleveland, said Roueche. An executive at MTD is on the Providence House board.

“We thought it would be nice for the children to have a quiet area,” Roueche said.

All of the plants are low-maintenance.

“We didn’t want to burden the caretakers,” said Rochelle Greayer, whose PITH + Vigor website is at pithandvigor.com. “These are plants that are easy to grow and care for. There’s nothing tricky, but they are pretty and joyful. This is a quiet area where the children will have respite and an education.”

The other five garden and DIY experts who came to Cleveland are Erin Spain, erinspain.com; Serena Appiah, whose Thrift Diving website is at thriftdiving.com/about-3; Sarah Fogle, Ugly Duckling House at uglyducklinghouse.com; Eric Rochow, whose GardenFork site is at ericrochow.com; and Mary Nielson, of The House that Lars Built at thehousethatlarsbuilt.com.

“We’ve been given instructions for watering and upkeep,” said Quanbeck. “We’re really excited, and very grateful for this.

By Jerry Milner, Associate Commissioner of the Children’s Bureau and Acting Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families

The Children’s Bureau will honor five winners of its Champion Awards at this year’s 21st National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect. The award recognizes the efforts of agencies, community-based organizations, businesses, courts, individuals, parent leaders, and others who have made exceptional contributions in promoting the health and well-being of children and families. The 2019 Champion Awards recipients are:

For Preventing Child Maltreatment
Providence HouseVisit disclaimer page (Cleveland, OH)

Founded in 1981 to provide emergency shelter for children in Greater Cleveland whose families were experiencing a crisis, Providence House supports one of the longest lengths of stay among nurseries in the U.S. and offers the deepest levels of services beyond children’s emergency shelter, promoting family stability and preservation and preventing foster care placements.

For Reshaping Foster Care as a Support for Families
Andrew and Amy Baker (Searcy, AR)

Andrew and Amy, foster parents since 2014, are committed to partnering with birth parents to help ensure that every child they have fostered is eventually reunified with his or her biological family. Andrew is the founder of Red Door Table Foundation, an organization committed to supporting biological parents, children and foster families.

For Promoting Child and Family Well-being
Sue Williams (Columbia, SC)

Sue has been a tireless advocate for children and families throughout South Carolina and at the national level. As CEO of the Children’s Trust of South Carolina, Sue has built a collaborative program model where local partners deliver community knowledge, leadership, and access to families and program delivery.

For Building Community Capacity
Good Samaritan Community ServicesVisit disclaimer page (San Antonio, TX)

Good Samaritan Community Services serves as a catalyst for change, supporting youth, individuals, and families by providing community-based services designed to help empower them to overcome the impact of poverty. These services, reaching more than 5,500 individuals and families across six sites in South Texas, include a child development program, youth development services, afterschool and summer youth enrichment programs, a college readiness program, and family services.

For Supporting the Workforce
Justin “Jay” Miller (Louisville, KY)
Jay Miller is Associate Dean for Research, Associate Professor, Director of the Self-Care Lab, and the Doris Y. Wilkinson Distinguished Professor in Social Work Education in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky. Jay founded the Self-Care Lab at the university to address potentially toxic employment conditions for child welfare professionals. He is also engaged in state-wide efforts to support foster/adoptive/kinship caregivers.

The Children’s Bureau received over 60 nominations for the Champion Award. View the complete list of each category and eligibility requirements.

Providence House, a crisis nursery, will open a second campus in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood, growing its capacity to care for children and families in crisis.

With the second campus, Providence House will increase the number of infants and children it serves annually to more than 700, and expand services to more than 1,000 parents and caregivers.

Providence House’s “Giving Hope for the Phuture” — $13 million campaign to support the new campus and sustain the organization into the future — has raised around $2.5 million to date, including leadership gifts from Saint Luke’s Foundation and campaign chairs Karen Dolan, a trustee of the Providence House board, and her husband, Paul Dolan, chairman and CEO of the Cleveland Indians.

“Providence House has always responded to the needs of our community’s most vulnerable members, children whose families are in crisis,” said Natalie Leek-Nelson, Providence House CEO and president, in a prepared statement. “It’s our priority to meet the tremendous demand in our community for our services and be accessible to the children who are at risk of abuse and neglect. We’re so thankful for the gifts from Saint Luke’s and the Dolans at this early stage in our fundraising campaign, as it demonstrates their confidence in Providence House delivering needed services to our East Side community.”

Providence House’s current Ohio City campus serves about 350 children a year. Due to limited space, the organization last year couldn’t admit 170 infants and children at its West Side campus, according to a news release. Roughly 70% of those unserved lived on the East Side of Cleveland, prompting the organization to look for a second location to serve those children and families in their neighborhood.

“The board and the staff really rose to the challenge and said, ‘OK, we need to go where the children are,’ ” Leek-Nelson said in an interview. “And we began a process of just looking at what our options were for facilities on the East Side.”

Renovations, addition planned

Providence House in January bought the historic Weizer Building located at East 118th Street and Buckeye Road. Plans for the new campus include a $3 million renovation of the existing building and a $5 million, 7,000-square-foot addition to house a 24-bed crisis nursery residential wing.

The Weizer Building will house Providence House’s administrative offices, a children’s education center (complete with classrooms and activity spaces, a gymnasium, medical exam rooms and more) and a family resiliency center, where families can access case management, connect to community resources and visit their children. The site will also have playgrounds for the kids, including basketball courts and grassy areas.

Pending reaching fundraising milestones, the goal is to begin renovation of the Weizer Building in June and begin occupying it with administrative and family services in October. New construction of the residential nursery is slated to begin next spring with an eight-month build, aiming to have children in the building in late 2020/early 2021.

The plan also includes some minor work on the West Side campus to address wear and tear. Moving administrative offices from the West to East Side also frees up space on Providence House’s original campus to give people more appropriate, confidential workspaces.

“Saint Luke’s Foundation is proud to support Providence House in their expansion to the East Side,” Anne C. Goodman, Saint Luke’s Foundation president and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “Their work aligns well with our mission to improve and transform the health and well-being of individuals, families and the neighborhood surrounding Saint Luke’s. We’re excited to see the impact Providence House will have in this neighborhood and beyond.”

Once the renovation and new building are completed, Providence House anticipates it will hire an additional 40-45 new employees, the majority of whom will be full-time.

“What’s really kind of cool about those positions is 30 or so of those jobs are jobs we train individuals to,” Leek-Nelson said. “They don’t need special certification or a degree. They’re child-care providers, housekeeping, maintenance. And so we’re really hoping we can generate some live-work opportunities in the Buckeye Neighborhood, which unfortunately is one of the neighborhoods with the highest rate of poverty and the highest rate of unemployment in Cleveland.”

Neighborhood catalyst

Providence House hopes to help catalyze future development and partnerships in the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods, according to the release.

The new campus will serve an additional 325 children in the East Side Crisis Nursery with free, noncustodial care and emergency shelter to children newborn through 12 years old whose families are in crisis. Providence House also offers families a range of services, including, according to the release: family preservation services to support family stability for parents/guardians with children in the East Side Crisis Nursery; onsite aftercare program to support families reunited with their children to offer continued guidance and resources; and a community-based family resource center and basic needs support programs for families referred by local partners.

“While the children are with us, we’re very holistically working with the children — their medical wellness, their developmental milestones, school readiness, school enrollment, all that work,” Leek-Nelson said. “And while we’re doing that with the children, our social workers are working intensively with the parents to address homelessness, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health issues, and sometimes it’s a combination of a bunch of those factors. And so really, our goal is to keep that family together by creating a support network that will be with them when their children return home and continue to see them remain safe and stable.”