Tania Menesse speaks
with confident certainty
about the link between
the well-being of
Shaker Heights and
nearby Cleveland
neighborhoods such as
Buckeye, Mt. Pleasant,
and Union-Miles.
“As Cleveland gets stronger,
Shaker gets stronger,” says Menesse,
a Boulevard neighborhood resident
and CEO and president of Cleveland
Neighborhood Progress.
“What we’re focused on
is equitable neighborhood
revitalization, bringing opportunity
into neighborhoods that have been
disinvested in over time. We need
to spend a disproportionate amount
of time helping to rebuild that
community development infrastructure
and attracting investment into these
neighborhoods. We also need to ensure
that there’s strong leadership there.”
The way Menesse and Cleveland
Neighborhood Progress see it, this
kind of collaborative equity work is
critically important for the health of
the whole region. Understanding
connections between communities –
and leveraging those connections for
the collective benefit – is at the heart
of what Menesse does at Cleveland
Neighborhood Progress.
The nonprofit, located in
the former St. Luke’s Hospital on
Shaker Boulevard in the Buckeye
neighborhood of Cleveland, acts
on behalf of the more than two
dozen community development
corporations (CDCs) in the City of
Cleveland. The CDCs are independent
nonprofits – each working for the
well-being of their own neighborhood
and, together, through the work of
Cleveland Neighborhood Progress,
they foster and invest in equitable
economic development.
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“I spend
a lot of time
connecting
the dots.”
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