The Cleveland Foundation, which marked its centennial on Thursday, has played a major role in shaping the greater Cleveland metropolitan area over the past hundred years, the Plain Dealer reports.

"In the past one hundred years, if you had a magnet that could suck up all the important things that the Cleveland Foundation has done for the area into the air, there wouldn't be a lot left," said Ronald B. Richard, president and CEO of the oldest community foundation in the country.

Although Richard is biased, it's hard to overstate the impact the foundation has had on Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. With assets of $2 billion and grantmaking approaching $100 million annually, the foundation is one of the largest community foundations in the country. At the same time, it has evolved from a straightforward maker of grants to a convener of and partner in several multimillion-dollar, high-impact projects. One of the latest and most ambitious is the Greater University Circle Initiative, which aims to encourage wealthy "anchor" institutions in the University Circle neighborhood, including Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, and University Hospitals, to share their resources and better engage with people and nonprofits in surrounding neighborhoods.

Indeed, the foundation's growing asset base has enabled it to become an initiator of a number of forward-thinking initiatives. "In the early years, we didn't have much money,” Richard, who has led the foundation for the past decade, told the Plain Dealer. "It was really under my predecessor, Steve Minter, that the foundation's dollar amount really went up. It jumped tremendously, something like from $100 million to a billion. Last year, we gave away $91 million, our highest amount ever. The more money you have, the more influence you have, the more clout you have in terms of advocacy."

Some of that clout can be seen in the significant roles the foundation has taken on in the areas of education, the arts, energy and the environment, and economic development over the past thirty years or so. "Sometimes our contributions have nothing to do with money," Richard said. "They have everything to do with suggestions and using our influence to persuade people to do things they wouldn’t have done, but have huge benefits."