The Greater Cleveland Funders Collaborative (GCFC) is a network of 30 Northeast Ohio public and private foundations that partners with nonprofits, businesses, collaborative groups, and government entities to strengthen the resiliency of the local nonprofit sector and broader community and effect policy change. Our members work across sectors and alongside the organizations and public systems that support children, families, and communities throughout our region.
We see the extraordinary commitment of Ohio's human services organizations and the growing pressures on their ability to meet community needs. These organizations provide essential services that help Ohioans remain healthy, housed, fed, connected, and economically secure.
At the same time, they are being asked to respond to more complex needs while managing rising costs, workforce challenges, and greater operational demands. Their commitment is substantial, but their capacity is finite. As funders, we see what happens when escalating community needs meets constrained public and nonprofit capacity.
When public systems are under-resourced, difficult to navigate, or designed in ways that shift costs downstream, those costs do not disappear. Counties, providers, community organizations, families, and, increasingly, philanthropy shoulder them.
Philanthropy cannot replace lost public dollars. Our limited resources are best used to complement public systems by building organizational capacity, responding to emerging needs, bringing partners together, and helping communities develop and test promising approaches. Ohio's next Governor has an opportunity to improve the public systems on which Ohioans and the organizations serving them depend.
Recommendations
- Expand access to publicly funded child care, including increasing income eligibility toward 200 percent of the federal poverty level, while strengthening reimbursement and the early childhood workforce so families can access high-quality care and providers remain viable.
- Extend and expand the Ohio Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, created in 2023 to provide state resources that help maximize federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit investment and increase the development and preservation of affordable housing throughout Ohio.
- Sustain and grow critical state investments, policies, and mechanisms in school-based health and school-based health centers (SBHCs), including: the Medicaid School Program, Ohio Department of Health grants and Ohio SEE program, and Student Wellness and Success funds.
- Ensure every Ohioan can easily access workforce, benefits, housing, child care, emergency supports, and opportunities through 211, a single trusted entry point.
- Support the creation of a refundable Ohio Child Tax Credit and make Ohio's Earned Income Tax Credit refundable.
We encourage your administration to engage nonprofit partners, philanthropy, local government, and communities early in the development and implementation of policies that affect them. These partners bring practical knowledge about how policies work on the ground and where unintended barriers can arise.
A strong nonprofit sector and a strong philanthropic community are important assets for Ohio.
They have the greatest impact when they complement, rather than compensate for, healthy public systems. We look forward to partnering with your administration to better meet the needs of Ohio's communities.
Sincerely,
Greater Cleveland Funders Collaborative
