Community Shares' Fiscal Year Ends Sunday. Give For Local Change Today!

Sunday marks the end of Community Shares' 29th fiscal year of service to the tri-state community.

That means three decades of advancing local change, amplifying and uplifting marginalized populations, and empowering those fighting on the front lines locally for LGBTQIA+ equality, reproductive freedom, gender equity, racial equity, immigration reform, environmental sustainability, conservation, pet care, economic justice, civic engagement, criminal justice reform, affordable housing, and so much more.

These are big issues with national and international implications that can make us feel small by comparison and unable to move the needle, but we CAN and DO move the needle locally, which is why the work of Community Shares and our member charity partners is so vital.

If you don't like the way it looks like our country could be headed, if you want to address the attacks on your fundamental rights and liberties, then buy local, give local, and make local change. Be the change you want to see, and you will change the world one heart at a time. Please join us in this fight.

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Give today at givebutter.com/givecincy to fund those continuing to bend the arc of history locally. Sunday is the last day to make a gift that counts in our current fiscal year before we start our 30th year of service to the community. Thank you for your partnership!

P.S. We are in the process of switching over to a new online giving processor, Give Butter, which offers more options than our previous processor provided including PayPal, Venmo, and ACH. Visit it here!

Three Community Shares Members Up For Impact 100 Grants

Highlighting the impact of our local work, nearly half of this year's Cincinnati Impact 100 grant finalists are part of Community Shares!

Seven finalists out of more than 120 initial applicants were announced this week for this year's four $100,000-per-charity prizes for breakthrough nonprofits, and three of them have benefitted from longstanding participation in our Community Shares family:

Five-year Community Shares member Transform, for which Community Shares also serves as its fiscal sponsor under our Social Justice Incubator project, is being considered for a partnership with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) for Providing Support for LGBTQ+ Individuals With Mental Health Conditions. They will develop and pilot a new, collaborative support group model that will provide mutual support and resources for adult LGBTQ+ individuals who also have a mental health condition, tailored to their specific intersectional identities.

Twenty-eight-year Community Shares member Ohio Justice & Policy Center (OJPC) is up for Advocating for Incarcerated Women. If selected, their grant would support the hiring of a dedicated attorney to lead OJPC’s Women’s Project, addressing critical issues such as human trafficking, domestic violence, and self-defense against abuse, to ensure justice and empowerment for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women.

Twenty-year Community Shares member UpSpring is a finalist for Extending Hope for Homeless Youth Across Greater Cincinnati. This project would expand its Summer 360°, After School, and Resource Collaborative programs to include Butler and Clermont Counties, and additional sites in Hamilton, Boone, and Kenton Counties to support at least 415 new students in their academic and social-emotional needs over a three-year period.

Congratulations to all finalists and best of luck in the remaining process before the recipients are selected later this year.

Christ Church Cathedral Awards Social Justice Incubator Grant

A note of appreciation must be expressed to Christ Church Cathedral of the Diocese of Southern Ohio. The Grants Committee of the downtown Cincinnati Episcopal church recently approved a $10,000 grant to support expansion of Community Shares' Social Justice Incubator project.

Entering its fifth year, our Social Justice Incubator currently serves as fiscal sponsor to several local groups of volunteers leading vital social justice work in our community including County Connect (focused on building relationships among rural residents and urban residents of Southwest Ohio), the Greater Cincinnati Voter Collaborative (advancing nonpartisan civic and electoral engagement), and Science On Tap (which hosts monthly science lectures at Radio Artifact), among others. We also accept gifts on behalf of the Cincinnati NAACP to support charitable portions of its racial justice work.

If you are starting a local social justice effort and would benefit from the guidance and mentorship of Community Shares, please contact our CEO Duane Gordon at dgordon@cintishares.org for more information.

Welcome New Board Members

Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati is pleased to welcome two new members to our Board of Directors who will serve three-year terms of 2024-2027:

Kimberly McGinnis, advocate for birth and social equity, is a manager of a perinatal outreach program at Mercy Health, where she supports community health workers who partner with pregnant families in Hamilton County in an effort to address the disparities in Black infant and maternal health outcomes.

Kimberly is a yogi, certified doula, certified lactation counselor, certified community health worker, and licensed professional counselor. Kimberly has also been a advocate for marginalized students in higher education and served as an academic advisor for over 20 years. Kimberly is also a social justice facilitator, trained by the Racial Awareness Program, at the University of Cincinnati, where she is a proud alum.



Kimberly is a founding board member for Transform and a consulting board member of the Blaq Birth Circle and she has also served on the Queen’s Village Roselawn Neighborhood board and Main board. Kimberly is honored to be considered for the Community Shares Board of Directors. Kimberly hopes to positively impact the future of Cincinnati through service with Community Shares.

Isabella (Bella) Frueh (she/her) is a Cincinnati native who spent sixteen years in the non-profit education and youth services sector, before making the move in early 2023 to philanthropy.

As Program Officer for Education & Workforce Development at Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Bella oversees their educational grantmaking cycles and partners closely with GCF’s Chief Impact Officer to support their Economic Mobility partners.

Bella received her Master of Arts in International Child Studies from King’s College London, and previously a BS in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati. She is an experienced connector and partnership-builder, and currently serves our community in a few roles: as Equity Committee Co-Chair for the Southwest Ohio Association for the Education of Young Children, as a member of the local Integrated Schools chapter, and as a volunteer for the Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub.

Some of her previous history of community service also includes the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s Young Professionals Advisory Council; the Public Allies Cincinnati Advisory Board; and the Learning Grove DEI Task Force. An impassioned advocate for systemic justice and cross-sector collaborations, Bella is committed to elevating and accelerating community-led change and always "votes with her dollar." She lives in Northside with her partner, though truthfully she “claims” both the East and West sides of the city due to her expansive family roots.