Nonprofit Thursday Report: NBMBAA, Diversity Center, Presidents Council Foundation

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Cleveland National Black MBA Association Summer Mix set for July 10

Edgewater Park event scheduled for 5:30PM-8:30PM  

The National Black MBA Association Cleveland Chapter is encouraging young professionals to join in next week’s Engage! Cleveland's 5th annual Summer MIX. This is an opportunity to network with Cleveland's YP community in a relaxed environment while enjoying one of Cleveland's best assets — our waterfront. This is an excellent opportunity to check out the upgrades to Edgewater Park, a place some many of us have never even visited. 

The $10 registration includes appetizers and entrance to the networking pavilion.  Click here to register. 

• • •

PC Scholars Graduation & Scholarship Reception set for July 10 at Tri-C Metro

Each fall, the Presidents’ Council Foundation works with high school guidance counselors in the Cleveland area to select a group of sophomores with GPAs in the 2.5 – 3.0 range, and who have both a strong desire for achievement and a career interest in business, construction, entrepreneurship, financial services, healthcare, law or manufacturing and a strong desire for achievement.

The students meet twice a month for three hours on Saturdays throughout the school year and into the summer for three years.

This year’s graduating crop of PC scholars will be saluted on July 10 at the Cuyahoga Community College’s Metro Campus for their academic and career preparation, and their leadership and life skills development. The program begins at 5:30PM and the public is invited.

• • •

Free Professional Development Seminar is Cultural Competence Learning Opportunity

Diversity Center-MetroHealth collaboration designed for the healthcare and public safety communities

The Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio, in partnership with MetroHealth System and The Collection Auto Group, is offering an LGBTQ-focused seminar in anticipation of the Gay Games being held in Cleveland next month.

The seminar is designed to assist healthcare and public safety professionals understand the impact this important aspect of identity has and to embrace the approach of respect for diversity and inclusion. Sponsors hope that attendees will be better prepared to address unconscious bias and inequities toward the LGBTQ community.

The free seminar will be Tuesday, July 29, from 8:30AM-11:30AM in MetroHealth’s Scott Auditorium, 2500 MetroHealth Drive, Cleveland, 44109.

The registration deadline is noon on Friday, July 25. To download a registration form, visit www.diversitycenterneo.org or call 216.752.3000.

Guest speakers and panelists will include MetroHealth president and CEO Dr. Akram Boutros; Dr. Henry Ng of MetroHealth System & Pride Clinic; Phyllis Harris, Director, LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland; Jacob Nash, TransOhio; Rachael Nolan, National Resource Center for LGBTQ Aging; and transgender activist Zoe Lapin.

CEUs for LSW, LISW, LPC, and LPCC will be available [$25.]

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The Presidents’ Council Foundation is holding its Sixth Annual Golf Outing on Monday, August 18 at the Barrington Country Club in Aurora. Registration is available online here or by calling 216.771.8702.

Kasich, Foundations, Parties, and Making Black History

Gov. John Kasich delivered

State of the State address

yesterday in neighboring

Medina County.

We had planned to watch online the State of the State speech yesterday but family exigencies intervened.  We did manage to catch the latter part of it in the car on the way home and what we heard the Governor saying made us curiouser and curiouser. He sounded so compassionate and so concerned about education that he might have passed for a Democrat.

Of course, the measure of an elected official is not what he says but what he does. We will be watching and reporting on which of the Governor’s promises and commitments find themselves supported by state dollars and new legislation. But at this point we will confess that the Governor has surprised us once or twice already during his term in office.

Meanwhile, we posted yesterday about tomorrow’s Blueprint Roundtable on chronic social issues affecting generations of African Americans. This promises to be an important public conversation that has as one aim the establishment of a multigenerational dialogue among black men of all ages, philosophies, and orientations.

The event runs from 11:30AM to 1:30PM. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Attendees may register either online or by calling 216.448.0607.

We will try to post live from the site, but the Clinic’s Bunts Auditorium is a true bunker and we may not have internet access even from our trusty hotspot.

The Presidents Council Foundation, BPA Charitable Foundation, Karamu and more

Also upcoming this week is the annual meeting of The President’s Council Foundation. Foundation officers will lay out the organization’s vision for the next three years, recognize the most recent graduating class of Emerging Entrepreneurs, and place last year’s successes in context alongside the Foundation’s strategic plan.

The program, which is being held at The Club at Key Center, will begin at 6:15PM, preceded by a 45-minute period of registration, networking and hors d’oeuvres.

If you plan to attend, you should probably call Erica Penick at 216.771.8702 at extension 225 tomorrow, since the RSVP deadline was Valentine’s Day.

Black Professional of the Year nominations due this Friday

The Black Professionals Association Charitable Foundation annual meeting is coming up on March 12, at Tri-C’s Jerry Sue Thornton Building, 2500 East 22 Street. This year’s Black Professional of the Year will be announced during the meeting, which is scheduled for 5:30PM-7:30PM.

Dr. Michael Schoop, president of the college’s Metro Campus, will deliver the

Dr.Michael Schoop

keynote address for the meeting. Also on the agenda are the swearing of new trustees and recognition of the Foundation’s 2013 Class of Scholars.

This event is free and open to the public but seating is limited. Guests are required to RSVP by emailing their intentions to info@BPACF.org with the subject line “Annual Meeting RSVP” or by calling 216.229.7110.

There is still time to submit your candidate for Black Professional of the Year. Nominations remain open through this Friday, February 28. The organization has been working to increase community involvement in the nominating process.

To submit a BPOY nomination, visit www.BPACF.org and download the nomination form.

A Smorgasboard of Civic Revelry on tap this Friday

We don’t know if people suddenly woke up and realized that Black History Month was about to end or what, but there is abundant civic merriment scheduled for Friday, the last day of this year’s Black History Month observance.

We mentioned yesterday that the NAACP was hosting an open house at its new digs, 7100 Euclid Ave., in midtown. That event, which includes a Black History observance, runs from 6:30PM-8:30PM.

Only a few blocks away, another venerable institution, Karamu, is hosting its first-ever “Mix and Mingle” mixer, featuring live music provided by Kevin Conwell and the Footprints. We assume but don’t vouch for the group leader being the Glenville councilman.

We do know that the cost of admission is $7. And that attendees should bring their dancing shoes, a willingness to socialize, and their “own spirits”. We think that makes this a cabaret.

Of course you know Karamu is at the corner of Quincy Ave. and East 89^th Street, where the revelry will extend from 6PM until 10:30PM.

And the latest event to come to our attention comes from a sponsoring cast of thousands. It’s a Cavs-Jazz postgame Black Heritage event inside Bridges at the Q. We guess that means you have to buy a ticket to the game, which you can do for as little as $19 here.  The reception will take place on Level 4 and last until 11:30PM. The Unit Band will provide the sounds and there will be complimentary cocktails.

The cast of thousands? Add up the membership rolls of the cosponsors, which include the Society of Urban Professionals, the Cleveland Chapter of the National Association of Black MBAs, the 100 Black Men of Cleveland,  the Women’s Leadership Forum, the National Pan-Hellenic Council of Greater Cleveland, the Norman S. Minor Bar Association, the Black Sports Professionals, the Cleveland State University Black Alumni, the Kent State University Black Alumni,  the Men of Morehouse local alumni chapter, and maybe more …

• • •

All of this activity makes you thing there must be a whole lot of educated and healthily employed African Americans in Greater Cleveland. It could make you wonder what they might do collectively as part of some dynamic, progressive, innovative umbrella organization.

Might they have persuaded the county prosecutor to take less than 453 or so days [and counting] to bring some serious charges against the policemen who fired 137 bullets into a vehicle with two unarmed occupants? 

State Sen.
Nina Turner
is running for
Ohio Secretary
of State

Or could they have pooled some resources to take concerted action that might have minimized the hollowing out of the neighborhoods where so many of them grew up — Glenville, Mt. Pleasant, Collinwood, Kinsman, etc.?

Could they unite to help one of their own become the first Democrat elected to statewide office EVER? 

Now wouldn't that make some Black History in 2014 to celebrate in 2015?

Nonprofit Thursdays: Mental Health & Violence, The Presidents Council Foundation, PolicyBridge, The Gathering Place

TOWN HALL MEETING on Substance Abuse, Mental Health & Violence

We just learned of a Town Hall meeting today on the interrelationship between substance abuse, mental health, and violence.

The meeting is today at the New Life Cathedral, 16200 Euclid Avenue in East Cleveland.

Panelists include William M. Denihan, CEO of the county ADAMHS board [Alcohol, Drug Addition, Mental Health Services]; Helen Hernandez, administrator of Office of National Drug Control Policy; Gary Norton, mayor of East Cleveland; Judge William Dawson, East Cleveland Municipal Court; and a representative of the Domestic Violence and Child Advocacy Group.

Fox 8 News anchor Wayne Dawson is the moderator.

The meeting sponsor is the Northern Ohio Recovery Association. Call 216.541.6672 for more information.

Two area nonprofits collaborate to study key issues for local African Americans

The Presidents Council Foundation has joined with PolicyBridge, Cleveland’s think tank for Northeast Ohio public policy issues of particular interest to African Americans, to develop research over the next several years relating to urban education, entrepreneurship and economic development.

A joint committee comprised of board members from both organizations is working on a road map to chart the specifics of this work. We will have more to report on this initiative soon.

Find great buys and support The Gathering Place

The Gathering Place  [see here and here] is having a sale this weekend of furniture, holiday decorations, collectibles, and lots of china and glassware.

The sale is this Saturday, October 26 from 9am to 2pm and Sunday, October 27 from 10am to 1pm.

See photos here. Call 216.595.9546 for more information.