The Cleveland Foundation and its partners have announced grants totaling $1.89 million from the Cleveland Black Futures Fund, which provides organizational infrastructure and capacity-building support to Cleveland-based organizations that are both Black-led and Black-serving.

Initial grants were awarded to forty-nine organizations, more than 40 percent of which were first-time applicants to the foundation. Recipients include Birthing Beautiful Communities ($50,000); Burten, Bell, Carr Development, Inc. ($50,000); Cleveland VOTES ($50,000); Environmental Health Watch ($100,000); Gardening in the District Community Garden ($25,000); LGBTQ Community Center of Greater Cleveland ($100,000); Minority Organ and Tissue Transplant Education Program of Cleveland ($25,000); Northeast Ohio Alliance for Hope (NOAH) ($50,000); A Vision of Change ($100,000); and RollinBuckeyez Foundation ($25,000). The fund plans to award a second round of grants in the fall.

"The outstanding application response to the fund was not entirely unexpected because we knew the need is there, but now we know how great the need is in service of this work," said Courtenay Barton, Cleveland Foundation program director for arts and culture and racial equity initiatives. "As our community continues to give generously to this fund, we will be able to support a wide array of organizations that are doing the hard work on the ground each and every day."

For a complete list of fund recipients, see the Cleveland Foundation website.

(Photo credit: LGBTQ Community Center of Greater Cleveland)