The Cleveland Foundation at Seventy-Five

So while the concept of a community foundation had been announced with great promise in 1914, in Cleveland the institution itself languished in the late 1920S. Two events saved it.

The first was set in motion in late 1930, when the Board of Directors of Cleveland Trust Company approved an amended charter for the foundation with the rather imposing title of the Resolution and Declaration of Trust Creating the Multiple Trusteeship. That document allowed a prospective donor to name as trustee of his or her bequest to the foundation the trust company with which he or she was accustomed to doing business. This development did not change the internal operation of the foundation in any major way, but it did result in a new Trustees Committee composed of the presidents of the participating banks, who assumed the duties of managing the foundation's assets that had previously been Cleveland Trust's alone.

The second providential event occurred in 193 I, when the foundation received its largest bequest up to that time. The donor was the late Harry Coulby, a partner in the firm of Pickands Mather & Company, a major supplier of raw materials to the steel industry. Upon his death at age sixty-four, the childless "Czar of the Great Lakes," as he was then known, left $3 million to the foundation, a godsend that skyrocketed its income in 193 I to $250,000.

I was amazed to learn that The Cleveland Foundation's endowment did not reach the $lo-million level until 1946, and that it did not exceed the $20-million mark until 1956. But during the last three decades, the foundation's assets have grown steadily. And with this increase in corpus came a change in the foundation's focus toward flexible service to donors. During this period The Cleveland Foundation pioneered in creating several innovative programs for donors that are now industry standards. The Combined Fund was established to encourage small gifts and bequests, which could be administered more inexpensively as a single account. That particular fund now exceeds $23 million-a testament to the widespread appeal of the community foundation concept and the generosity of many non-affluent Clevelanders.

And in the seventies, former Distribution Committee Chairman John Sherwin, Sr. invented what is known today as a "supporting or[ 16 ]