Community Shares Welcomes David CS Whitehead To Board

Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati is pleased to announce that our Membership Organizations at their Annual Meeting this month unanimously elected David CS Whitehead to join our Board of Directors. He replaces First Financial Bank's Shenda Larry, who rotated off the Board due to term limits after serving six years, including as our Board Secretary.

David is a Sale Manager and Regional Political liaison for Spectrum Reach. He is the owner of David CS Whitehead Tax Service, LLC. David is extensively involved in the community and currently serves as the president of the Cincinnati NAACP where he chairs the Voter Empowerment and Political Action committees for both the branch and State of Ohio. In addition, he is Co-chairman of Voter Awareness for the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Ohio, Ohio Council of Deliberations, assist with the Desert of Ohio, and a class of 2023 Grand Inspector General in the AASR United Supreme Council Northern Jurisdiction. He is secretary of Gothic Lodge 122. 

David is one of the founding facilitators of the Helping Children Cope with Divorce Program in Hamilton County where he spent 12 years assisting parents in learning how to co-parent post separation. Also, he was an instructor for high conflict parenting training in the Clermont County court mandated parenting program. He served as the master of ceremony and avid supporter of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Sickle Cell Research Day for over 15 years. He continues his passion for assisting others through mentorship programs, public speaking, and any opportunity that comes.   He is a Sunday School leader at St James AME Church in Covington Kentucky.   

David attended both Cumberland College and the University of Cincinnati to earn his bachelor’s degree in business administration. David has spent numerous years coaching youth sports while raising his children. This competitive athlete resides in Cincinnati where he is actively involved in officiating basketball, football, and lacrosse. He is the 2023 recipient of the Cincinnati NAACP President’s Award for work in the community.  

Interact For Health Awards Transform Cincy $50,000

Transform Cincy, the region’s wardrobe charity for trans youth which has evolved into greater Cincinnati’s LGBTQIA+ community center, has received its largest donation to date with a $50,000 grant from Interact for Health to Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati supporting Transform’s work addressing mental health needs of local trans youth.

“Youth want to be seen and heard for who they are,” noted Interact for Health President and CEO Kate Schroder. “Programs like those at Transform Cincy provide the much-needed support to youth and their families to bolster health and well-being at a critical age. We’re grateful to partner with Transform Cincy as they continue to expand their reach and services.”

The funding came from Interact for Health’s $1 million 2025 Rapid Response Fund RFP, created to provide stability to nonprofit organizations through funding and technical support that strengthens organizational capacity to navigate the current political environment and to provide urgent mental health support to priority populations. The initiative was generated in response to Interact for Health’s recognition that its community partners are facing unforeseen challenges and uncertainty in the rapidly changing current funding environment.

“We are incredibly grateful to Interact for Health for recognizing the vital need of these services to local trans youth in a stressful environment where their right to exist is being openly questioned on an almost-daily basis in the public square,” explained Transform co-founder Tristan Vaught. “They need a safe space to explore their authentic selves and interact with others facing similar experiences in order to thrive.”

T. Duane Gordon, CEO of Transform’s fiscal sponsor Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati, echoed: “The services offered at Transform assure these youths and their families that they have as place in this world, that they belong, that they are loved and accepted and celebrated. That they deserve to grow up and be treated with dignity and respect. This investment from Interact for Health provides Transform with more opportunities to ensure that happens in Cincinnati.”

: 

Interact for Health’s Rapid Response Fund’s Emergency Mental Health Support for Priority Populations provides general operating support for pro-bono counseling, support groups, outreach, and other targeted services that will help members of the LGBTQ+, Hispanic, and Black communities increase their sense of safety, connection, and coping skills to navigate this moment of increased harm. Priority is given to providers that are able to quickly expand existing, culturally relevant services and reach these priority populations.

In its six-year history, the previously largest gift Transform had received was $32,000 from the producers of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” when their celebrity special was cancelled due to COVID precautions and actress Pamela Aldon had selected Transform as her charity for a planned appearance on the game show.

Started in 2019 as a wardrobe to provide youths with clothing as they transition genders, Transform offers monthly support groups for trans youth and their families and has expanded to offer parenting classes focusing on LGBTQIA youth in partnership with Beech Acres Parenting Center, mental health groups for LGBTQIA adults in partnership with NAMI Southwest Ohio, a monthly queer parents support group, a monthly free community dinner, and weekly program offerings on Wednesday nights for LGBTQIA adults and Friday nights for queer and trans youths.

Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati, the region’s federation of social justice, environmental, and animal welfare charities, also operates the region’s Social Justice Incubator to grow emerging social justice services in local neighborhoods and allow them to operate under Community Shares’ tax-exempt status. Transform was the first Incubator member and has remained a strategic partner in providing direct services to the local queer and trans communities. 

Donate to support the work of Transform here. Thank you.

P.S. Check out a great profile of Transform and Community Shares here from The Cincinnati Enquirer published online Wednesday as part of the paper's Pride Month series.

Tell Sen. Moreno Don't Cut Housing And Medicaid

Amplifying this message from Community Shares members Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition and Cincinnati NAACP:

Concerned residents will gather 11 a.m. to noon Friday at Sen. Bernie Moreno's Cincinnati office (Peck Federal Building, 550 Main Street) to call for him to reject proposed cuts to housing assistance and Medicaid in the proposed federal budget. These cuts threaten to send millions into homelessness.

The bill includes deep cuts to Medicaid, new work requirements, and burdensome application process. One in four people in Ohio depend on Medicaid, as do many of our healthcare institutions. And Ohio legislators are working to pass a law that triggers and end to Medicaid expansion should the federal share of the program go below 90%. The House bill also proposes to cut Affordable Care Act subsidies that help people afford health insurance through the Marketplace. 

The proposal includes massive spending cuts to Housing & Urban Development too: ending the Section 8 housing vouchers program, cutting rental aid by 40% and leaving programs up to individual states to determine, and imposing new caps on rental assistance. This comes at a time went rents are still skyrocketing and homelessness continues to rise. We know it will lead to displacement - and that due to the Supreme Court's Grants Pass decision, municipalities will criminalize sleeping outside. 

The bill also includes cuts to programs designed to address climate change - programs that would have helped millions of Americans weatherize their homes and make energy efficiency upgrades.  SNAP (food stamps) programs are also on the chopping block. 

Click here to register for the action.

Equality Ohio: Speak Out On Ohio Budget Concerns

Amplifying this message from Community Shares member Equality Ohio:

Ohio lawmakers are considering one of our state’s most important pieces of legislation: Our Budget (Sub HB 96). But behind closed doors, lawmakers put in six anti-LGBTQ+ provisions unrelated to anything except advancing a cruel political agenda.

These provisions would:

• Try to erase the existence of trans and nonbinary people by defining “sex” narrowly as strictly “male” or “female” and “unchangeable” 
• Censor youth access to LGBTQ+ books in public libraries 
• Cut funding to youth shelters that affirm one’s gender identity 
• Restrict Medicaid funding for mental health services for transgender youth AND adults 
• Ban Pride flags from being flown at state agencies 
• Limit the accessibility of menstrual products in public restrooms

We need your voice NOW to hold lawmakers accountable to those they serve. A budget should be all about funding programs and services Ohioans rely upon—not advancing political extremism that harms LGBTQ+ Ohioans, especially transgender people and families.

Take Action Now: Email the members of the Budget Conference Committee where the budget is being finalized asking them to remove these harmful provisions. These harmful provisions will only cost Ohioans more by buying our state more lawsuits.

EMAIL THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE NOW!

Give To Community Shares As Our Fiscal Year Ends

In the past year, Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati has stood in resistance to the attacks against the constituents we and our member charities serve, leading locally from the margins to foster local change and create a more just, equitable, and environmentally sound community, uplifting and empowering our diverse community. As we end our fiscal year with so many of the populations we serve under direct attack from Washington and Columbus, please support our vital work that is more important now than ever before.

Please give here before June 30.