Give Back Cincinnati

Nonprofit Fuel Cincinnati Wants Your Help Selecting Grantees

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Fuel Cincinnati, founded in 2009 as one of the main programs of nonprofit Give Back Cincinnati, has awarded over $30,000 in grants across more than 30 projects. It is all done through annual events where attendees vote for their favorite projects.

And, coming up on May 28, Greater Cincinnati residents can once again let their voices be heard at the third annual Fuel the Fire event. It begins at 6:30 p.m. at Rhinegeist Brewery (1910 Elm Street; Cincinnati, OH 45202).

How does it work?

Fuel Cincinnati is an all volunteer committee of Cincinnati nonprofit Give Back CincinnatiEach guest will give a donation ($20 pre-sale, $30 at the door) for which they will receive appetizers by the bite, one drink ticket and a vote. Guests spend the evening learning about each applicant and their project idea. They then will cast a vote for their favorite project, and, at the end of the evening, the project or projects that gather the most votes are awarded a grant comprised of the evening’s ticket sale proceeds. Over a hundred and sixty people attended Fuel the Fire in 2013, awarding a winning grant of $2000 and a second place grant of $500.

More about Fuel Cincinnati

Fuel Cincinnati is an all-volunteer committee of young professionals who provide microgrants of $250 to $2,000 to support non-profit projects.  Fuel Cincinnati was founded in 2009, and is one of the main programs of Give Back Cincinnati , the region’s largest young professional volunteer organization. Fuel Cincinnati is also supported by generous grants from The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile US Bank Foundation (http://www.haileusb.org) and from The Mayerson Family Foundations (http://mayersonfoundation.org).

If you would to purchase tickets for Fuel the Fire or would like more information about Fuel Cincinnati, please visit our link at:  htttp://fuelcincinnati.org/fuelthefire

Fuel Cincinnati Fuels Innovative Cincinnati Projects

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Have you heard about Fuel Cincinnati? It is is a nonprofit accelerator that identifies and backs innovative community projects in the greater Cincinnati region. Run by an all-volunteer committee of young professionals, for the past six years Fuel (formerly known as Ignite) has been part of Give Back Cincinnati, the region’s largest young professional volunteer organization.

Fuel supports community innovators in a number of ways, including by awarding micro grants of between $250 and $2,000 to nonprofit projects in four core areas: education, community building, diversity, and environment. Fuel Cincinnati has received generous grants from The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile US Bank Foundation and from The Mayerson Family Foundations.

Joe Stewart-Pirone, Fuel chair, sent me information about the ten projects they sparked in 2013. While diverse, what they have in common is their common good for our community. What a great effort!

“Our mission is to identify young professionals with great ideas for improving the community, and then help them take those ideas from the back of a napkin to implementation in a year or less,” Joe said.

Fuel Cincinnati 2013 Projects

Growing Value Nursery

Braden Trauth, design professional and permaculture expert, is a director of Cincinnati-based nonprofit This Land, Inc.  He came to Fuel Cincinnati with a proposal to create a retail nursery where the organization could offer both edible plants and education on how to grow them sustainably in the local urban environment.

Fuel’s committee fell in love with the idea at first sight. “You talk with Braden for a half hour and you realize that we have these world-class experts on permaculture right here in Cincinnati,” Joe said. “Fuel knew we wanted to help launch this project as soon as we saw it. The focus on sustainability and on addressing the urban food desert problem was timely and exciting.”

Fuel invited This Land to present the idea at its annual Fuel the Fire event in June, where five organizers pitched their project ideas to over a hundred and fifty community members. Each person in the audience paid $20 for the opportunity to listen to the pitches and vote for their favorite, all while enjoying locally brewed beer at the Moerlein Tap Room and food from Cincinnati’s popular Eli’s BBQ.

This Land didn’t take home the $2,000 grant for the top vote-getter at Fuel the Fire, and it didn’t even win the $500 second-place grant. But the organization got to share its idea with dozens of people who had never heard of permaculture before that evening, and Trauth walked away from the event with a number of new connections who were interested in what This Land was doing.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. In August, Trauth met with Fuel Cincinnati to provide an update on the project, and Fuel awarded This Land a $1,200 grant. The Growing Value Nursery is now up and running in Northside.

Against the Grain Scholars

Michael Farrell conceived the idea that did win the most votes – and a $2,000 grant – at Fuel the Fire this year. The Xavier University alumnus and middle school teacher at St. Francis Seraph in Over-the-Rhine saw a gap in the local nonprofit landscape, and he started an organization called Against the Grain Scholars  to fill it.Against The Grain Scholars

When Mike  looked around at the programs serving inner city school students, it seemed to him that most resources aimed to help underachieving students. He felt not enough was being done to support students who were succeeding in that challenging environment.

So he  identified three students at his own school whose positive attitude, hard work, and solid achievement set them apart from their peers. Then he lined up young professionals to serve as mentors. He secured donations of tablet computers. He helped the students organize community service projects. And he created opportunities for the students to interact with their mentors. These were the first “Against the Grain Scholars.”

As the first generation of Against the Grain Scholars prepared to move on to high school, Mike came to Fuel Cincinnati for help to keep the project going for a new group of students. Fuel liked the idea and the passion behind it, but in a competitive field of fourteen excellent proposals, Mike’s wasn’t initially one of the five invited to present at Fuel the Fire in June.

But apparently it was number six. Three days before the event, Mike got a call from Fuel.

“One of the other projects dropped out at the last minute,” recalled Joe. “We called Michael in the middle of the committee’s meeting to see if he was interested in the opportunity because we had to make a decision that night.”

Within 48 hours, Mike put together what turned out to be the winning presentation for the event. And after the votes were counted, he took home a $2,000 check to add two new student scholars to the program. “A teacher like Michael is a hero,” said Joe. “He’s a hero to those kids because he’s showing them how to change their lives, and he’s a hero to the community because he’s developing the next generation of young professionals who are going to help keep Cincinnati and our region moving forward.”

Grants and More

Fuel Cincinnati helped launch eight other great ideas in the greater Cincinnati region in 2013. The Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation (http://www.walnuthillsrf.org) received $500 to support its Five Points Alley Biergarten project, which transformed a blighted, unused space into a hub for community events in the neighborhood.

Local architects Elizabeth Schmidt and Brad Cooper won a $1,500 grant for their Place from Space design competition (http://placefromspace.wordpress.com), which generated over 30 proposals for innovative development of vacant spaces in five neighborhoods in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

Krista Beyrer (http://www.cahs.uc.edu/faculty/facultyprofile.aspx?epersonID=beyrerka) at University of Cincinnati received $2,000 for an initiative to use iPads to help people with language impairments caused by strokes or brain injuries communicate with others.

And Fuel awarded a $975 matching grant to Keep Cincinnati Beautiful’s Future Blooms Program (http://keepcincinnatibeautiful.org/programs/future-blooms) to fund the boarding and historically accurate painting of the iconic Paramount Building at Peebles Corner in Walnut Hills.

With Give Back Cincinnati’s (http://www.givebackcincinnati.org) former Vice President of Programs, Javi Cuadrado, taking over as Chair in 2014, Fuel Cincinnati has big plans for next year, too. Among other things, Fuel plans to create more opportunities for Give Back Cincinnati’s young professional members to connect with community projects and organizations looking for volunteers and pro bono professional services providers.

 

Nonprofit Spotlight – FUEL Cincinnati Providing Micro-grants

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Fuel Cincinnati, part of Give Back Cincinnati Have you heard about FUEL Cincinnati?  It is an all-volunteer committee of young professionals in Greater Cincinnati that is part of Give Back Cincinnati.

Fuel Cincinnati provides micro-grants in amounts ranging from $250 to $2,000 to fund non-profit projects in the Greater Cincinnati region, including the city of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and contiguous communities. Its central mission is to involve young professionals in the region in nonprofit projects in four core areas: (1) education, (2) community building, (3) the environment, and (4) diversity.

If an applicant has a great idea for improving the greater Cincinnati region through a nonprofit project related to one of FUEL’s core areas, and if all that’s standing in the applicant’s way is the lack of a few hundred or a couple of thousand dollars, FUEL exists to remove that obstacle. This is why FUEL prefers to provide the majority of the budget for projects it funds; FUEL’s mission is to make great things happen that wouldn’t happen without it. FUEL fills a gap by making capital available for projects smaller in scale than those typically funded by traditional foundations.

Fuel is supported by generous grants from The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile US Bank Foundation and from The Mayerson Family Foundations.

Give Back Cincinnati Keeps Giving

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A photograph on my dresser serves as a lasting memory of the afternoon I was part of a group who volunteered at a local nursing home. I think there were about 40 of us from Give Back Cincinnati there that day. Some of us were matched with residents, others helped coordinate the games.

I was with the same woman all afternoon. We played a lot of black jack, and I remember thinking lucky for us it’s play money. Actually what I remember most was the smiles and laughter we shared on that day. For a short time these people, many of whom used wheelchairs to get around and needed you to speak loudly so they could understand, were engulfed in happiness. It struck me too as I looked around the room how neat it was to be among so many peers whose common interest was the desire to brighten other people’s lives.

 

Afterward the volunteers gathered for a drink at a nearby pub. We talked about our experiences, but we also talked about each other. We probably all walked away with at least one new friend. I know I was uplifted. What a wonderful reason for bringing people together.
Give Back Cincinnati is such a great concept. The nonprofit, all volunteer, organization was started by three people who wanted to create an opportunity for young people to socialize through activities that are making a positive difference in communities. Today the group has more than 5000 members and has diversified to include international projects, national trips in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, and local civic engagement and volunteer efforts.

Paint the Town is the largest and flagship event, involving some 1300 volunteers. This year teams painted 42 homes for those who wouldn’t have been able to afford to hire someone. However, with more than 30 local projects there is almost certain to be a volunteer event for every interest.

To learn more about Give Back Cincinnati, please visit their web site at http://www.givebackcincinnati.org/.

Diane Haddad: Why She Gets Involved

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I thought from time to time, I’d ask that question of people I know. So many of us give of our time in our own very personal way. In fact, there are as many different opportunities to share of ourselves, as there are people to go around – actually, probably more.

When others do nice things for us, we tend to not forget…for a very long time. Diane Haddad is one of those people for me. Whenever I think about Give Back Cincinnati, I think about her because I will always remember her smile. I remember how, in the awkwardness of entering an environment where I knew no one, she went out of her way to make me feel welcome. I had a great time that day, and on another subsequent day when I volunteered at one of their projects. It’s a wonderful organization.

So, I thought it’d be great to start this journey by asking the question of Diane first. This is what she said:

“I started volunteering with Give Back Cincinnati because I had moved back to town recently and needed to meet people. There was one event in particular I went to that really clicked with me–everyone was having a great time helping out this one family, and at the end of the day, we could see the work we did. I liked being part of something like that. I wanted to be even more a part of it, so I applied to be on the board. I’ve never met a group of more involved, energetic, forward thinking people who care so much about their city! I wanted other Give Back volunteers to experience some of that energy.”

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