Campaigns and Projects
Big Ideas,
Real Impact.
CHEERS is a cost-effective, 30-year investment in Cleveland’s East Side Lakefront lead by Cleveland Metroparks and the Port of Cleveland with the support of partners Black Environmental Leaders Association, the City of Cleveland with the support of Cleveland City Council, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Work currently underway includes:
Partners are pursuing construction funding to build an early action project in the Habitat Loop (shown below), located north of the former First Energy site between the existing channels / stone structures. If successful, construction may kick off in 2028.
Equity in Action: The Next Chapter…
As a Life Member of the Black Environmental Leaders Association, the Intercity Yacht Club is partnering with BEL to create a Community Resilience Hub that will honor its legacy and serve the community long-term.
From the Ohio Climate Justice Fund to Power In Our Hands
The Ohio Climate Justice Fund (OCJF) was founded to direct philanthropic capital directly to frontline organizations, ensuring a sustainable and equitable future for Ohio. With foundational support from the George Gund Foundation, Energy Foundation, and the Cleveland Foundation, the OCJF established a powerful legacy of community-led change.
Our Proven Impact:
$1.2 Million granted directly to grassroots organizations.
31 Frontline Organizations funded and empowered.
8 Cities served, including Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and more.
Introducing the Next Chapter: Power In Our Hands Ohio
We are proud to introduce Power In Our Hands Ohio, the next evolution of this critical work. Building on the success of the OCJF, this next phase deepens our commitment to community-led solutions by:Investing in Local Knowledge: Putting resources behind community-based expertise.
Amplifying Grassroots Leadership: Ensuring communities are not just heard, but resourced and ready to lead.
Advancing Equitable Outcomes: Driving real-world progress in energy, climate, and justice.
A resilient Ohio demands it, and our communities deserve nothing less. We invite you to partner with us in this vital work.
Cleveland Comprehensive Policy Platform
In 2021, to catalyze an urgent response to our water crisis, over 30 community organizations representing thousands of Clevelanders from across the city’s diverse neighborhoods joined together with the Alliance for the Great Lakes to develop the Cleveland Comprehensive Environmental Policy Platform. The plan includes detailed policy recommendations aimed at addressing our city’s water affordability crisis and helping to ensure water equity, such as banning water shutoffs when a resident is unable to pay, improving water quality through long-needed infrastructure upgrades, reducing contaminants and lead exposure in drinking water, and ensuring that Cleveland’s existing codified ordinances addressing stormwater runoff and drinking and recreational water are consistently enforced.
The Cuyahoga County Comprehensive Environmental Policy Platform is the second iteration, expanded with a county focus. It serves as a resource aligned with work in the following Priority Areas:
Water Quality & Infrastructure
Environmental & Economic Justice
Energy & Air Quality
Infrastructure & Transportation
Land & Green Spaces
VALUES STATEMENT
We believe Cuyahoga County must become a more sustainable, diverse, and equitable place for all people — regardless of color or background. All residents deserve a county that: values their lives and trusts their lived experiences; invests in communities; acts intentionally to be inclusive and sustainable; and listens and responds to all people.
Black Landscapes Matter Speaker Series
The Black Landscapes Matter speaker series is designed to facilitate a state-wide conversation around the role of the built environment in enabling or inhibiting social equity and racial justice.
The conversations features a mix of national and local leaders and practitioners across disciplines and industries. The topic areas include public space design, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) experience in public space, parks and recreational access, public art and symbology, health and wellness, democracy/historical study, affordable housing and clean energy, and grassroots programming.
Black Landscapes Matter is provided with the support of the Energy Foundation.
Ohio Voices Informing Energy Choices Speaker Series
The Black Environmental Leaders Association (BEL) is committed to the advancement of 100% clean energy for all Ohioans. We recognize that without careful planning and deliberate policy, the benefits of renewable energy can flow towards existing privilege and wealth, leaving underrepresented and environmental justice communities without access to an equitable clean energy future. BEL counteracts that trend through education, advocacy and programming specifically designed to bring additional benefits to vulnerable communities. BEL is an active and engaged partner in leveraging more than $1.5M in projects to impact a positive pathway to just, equitable, carbon-free electric power systems by 2050.
The Ohio Voices Informing Energy Choices speaker series is designed to facilitate a state-wide grassroots conversation around the role of equitable clean energy options in underserved communities.
Ohio Voices is provided with the support of the Joyce Foundation.
Global Shapers Cleveland Hub
Global Shapers Cleveland Hub and Black Environmental Leaders Association are proud to announce their formal partnership in 2021. This partnership seeks to incubate, empower, and support a diverse group of leaders and professionals within the sustainability and policy field across Northeast Ohio.
The Global Shapers Community, an initiative of the World Economic Forum, is an international network of young leaders. Created to empower youth to self-organize for impact and to amplify the voice of young leaders, the Shapers Community is a network of over 400 city-based hubs full of change-makers looking to positively impact the world. GS-CLE ’s goal is to leverage the passion of this diverse group of young leaders to create local change through a global lens.
GS-CLE and BEL are excited about the impactful work the two organizations are doing together. This partnership holds the potential to become a model of collaboration and intergenerational leadership development. Both organizations are committed to reclaiming a rich heritage where youth and elders are respected, honored, and valued.
Environmental Justice Local Journalism Collaborative
Racial injustice, environmental injustice and the health of our democracy are inextricably linked; Gerrymandered districts deny our most impacted citizens’ concerns to be heard, and corruption in the political process acts as sand in the gears of good governance – preventing communities from taking back power. However, communities are not powerless to change their circumstances and confront environmental and racial injustices.
Progress is possible when communities build power, speak truth to power and build coalitions that shift the balance of power and result in real policy change. The advocacy and leadership of Mayor Carl Stokes and Representative Louis Stokes elevated environmental justice to the policy arena – eventually leading to the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Sustained advocacy of BIPOC community leaders, organizers and residents across Cleveland also advanced historic legislation to finally address the devastating impacts of lead exposure. Amidst heightened awareness and nationwide protests around the extent and depth of our nation’s racist history and enduring barriers – most acutely to the Black community’s health, prosperity, and basic safety – immediate and sustained action is needed.
It is urgent to leverage the power of our local news ecosystem and the local philanthropic community to help support information collaborations that lift up environmental justice narratives, stories and solutions led by BIPOC leaders, organizers, organizations and residents.
The Black Environmental Leaders Association, The Center for Community Solutions, Cleveland Foundation and The George Gund Foundation are partnering to test, refine and/or build out an environmental justice reporting project in Greater Cleveland to elevate BIPOC leaders and organizations taking action to improve the health of our communities, our climate, our environment and our democracy.