One big idea could change everything.
Our blog provides the opportunity for The Innovation Mission fellows and staff to share their journey, offering insight into how they use innovation to grow a big idea that can tackle poverty.
April 5, 2019
Penny Smith, PhD, CEO of Alegria Technologies, discusses her model for fathers to seek gainful employment to enable them to better support their families — while pursuing a career that works for them.
April 4, 2019
April 3, 2019
Legal Aid attorney Julie Cortes wants to provide the services & support that low-income entrepreneurs need to get their businesses off the ground. She is working with Mortar, a nonprofit out of Cincinnati, and establishing her model through The Innovation Mission.
April 2, 2019
Dabney Conwell, vice president, Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging and executive director, Rose Centers for Aging Well, is considering a new way to support the growing population of low-income seniors. Her approach combines meal prescriptions with in-person delivery that can alleviate the negative effects of isolation for elder Ohians.
April 1, 2019
Hazel Remesch, supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cleveland, has seen the toll that evictions can take on Clevelanders living in poverty. Through the Housing Justice Alliance, she is working to support tenants facing eviction with legal representation, which can greatly improve outcomes.
July 13, 2018
By Bill Leamon, college and career coach, Notre Dame College
Every student who goes to college should have a mentor.
By helping me focus on the problem at hand, The Innovation Mission has given me the time and space to think differently about how to approach mentoring, and how we can make this simple idea a fully scalable reality.
June 20, 2018
By Penny Smith, Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine at NEOMED and CEO of Alegria Technologies and Consulting
Until my work in The Innovation Mission, I thought that innovation was all about having a unique idea, and turning that into an effective solution. While that’s a huge part of it, without the element of storytelling, a great idea may never have the chance to be implemented.
May 14, 2018
By Susanna H. Krey, president, Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland
We’re proud of the great work that the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland has done in the foundation’s focus areas to end homelessness, reduce health disparities, improve educational opportunities and support the ongoing social justice work of the Catholic sisters. But we consistently hear the troubling statistic that 1 in 3 Clevelanders still live in poverty, including more than 50 percent of the city’s children.
April 30, 2018
By Julie Cortes, senior attorney, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
Many factors, such as family structure, educational attainment, physical health, community connections, work-related networks and access to health care, predict and affect the economic status and mobility of individuals and families. But the heart and soul of the American Dream is employment.
April 17, 2018
By Dabney Conwell, vice president, Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging; executive director, Rose Centers for Aging Well
Persons 60 years and older in Cuyahoga County will go from 21 percent in 2010 to 27 percent in 2020, and then to 31 percent in 2030. Our residents are living longer, but that doesn’t always equate to a better quality of life.
March 30, 2018
By Bill Leamon, college and career coach, Notre Dame College
With only 15 percent of Cleveland’s low-income, first-generation students who go to college achieving their dream of earning a diploma, the 85 percent who drop out of college will be no more prepared than before to pursue a career.
March 14, 2018
By Penny Smith, Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine at NEOMED and CEO of Alegria Technologies and Consulting
The current overall unemployment rate for Ohio is about 5.7 percent. Current job training and workforce programs generally are not targeted to non-custodial parents. If these individuals had better awareness of and access to gainful employment, they may be better motivated to support their child financially.
February 23, 2018
By Hazel Remesch, supervising attorney at The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
If housing is a basic human need, why isn’t legal representation to preserve an individual’s housing a basic right?
Dabney Conwell, vice president, Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging; executive director, Rose Centers for Aging Well
Julie Cortes, senior attorney, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
Bill Leamon, college and career coach, Notre Dame College
Hazel Remesch, supervising attorney of the housing practice, The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
Penny Smith, assistant professor of Family and Community Medicine at NEOMED and CEO of Alegria Technologies and Consulting
