Cleveland Community Wealth Collaborative

Program Overview

Collaborative Schedule

Contact Us

Program Overview
 

The Cleveland Community Wealth Collaborative is a 10-month business planning process that helps high-performing nonprofit organizations develop and grow social enterprises. Nonprofits selected to participate are engaged in a rigorous business planning process and gain access to tools, frameworks and business experts to help them launch a new business or expand an existing business. Collaborative participants build social enterprises while honing business skills, empowering them to have a lasting impact on their nonprofit organizations. 

The goal of the Collaborative is for all participants to complete a business plan and launch or grow a viable business. The revenue generated from the business provides the nonprofit organization with more independence in creating programs and services to fulfill its mission.

The Collaborative consists of monthly peer learning sessions and one-on-one consulting for management teams.

Peer Learning Sessions

Once a month, Collaborative participants gather for an interactive peer learning session.  Each session focuses on an important aspect of business planning, including:  market research, financial analysis, competitive analysis, pricing and capitalization. In addition, each session features a notable business expert who serves as a guest speaker, sharing his/her personal stories, successes, and challenges. 

Customized Consulting

Once a month, the Community Wealth Ventures consultants offer one-on-one consulting to participating venture management teams.  The customized sessions leverage the collective potential of the team to make sound business decisions.  The meetings are often working sessions whereby the consultants facilitate business strategy decision making, in addition to helping participants create data collection templates, analyze data, and edit sections of the business plan.

To assist Cleveland nonprofits in developing and growing social enterprises, the Cleveland Foundation, The William J and Dorothy K O'Neill Foundation, The Fred A. Lennon Charitable Trust, and National City Community Development Corporation have partnered with the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University and Community Wealth Ventures to launch the Cleveland Community Wealth Collaborative.

Benefits of participation

Participating organizations benefit from intensive, customized assistance from experienced business consultants, which results in a focused business plan to guide the growth of the enterprise. Other benefits include: 

• Opportunity to engage with nationally recognized business leaders;
• Use of a proven methodology and tools for developing a social enterprise;
• Access to research support; and
• In-depth monthly interaction with peer organizations.

A survey of past Collaborative participants showed 83% felt that the Collaborative was valuable or extremely valuable to their organizations. Ninety-two percent would highly recommend Community Wealth Ventures to colleagues. 

 
Requirements of participating organizations

Participants are expected to make the development of a social enterprise an organizational priority and dedicate necessary staff time to support the project.  Participants are required to keep up with assignments and attend all peer learning and customized consulting sessions.

Additionally, organizations are required to pay a $7,500 participation fee to help cover the project’s costs. The majority of the project is funded by the funding partners listed above.

Previous Cleveland Community Wealth Collaborative participants

Community Wealth Ventures has operated two successful Community Wealth Collaboratives in Cleveland to date. Organization and venture information on our 2006-2007 participants can be found here.

Find answers to frequently asked questions regarding the Cleveland Community Wealth Collaborative here.
 

Collaborative Schedule
 

Contact Us

Nicole Hanrahan
202.478.6566