Current Projects

CHEERS

In November 2021, The CHEERS Partnership was awarded $985,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF) to advance the Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Strategy (CHEERS). Through matching funds from the six project partners, the award will support a total of $1.97 million in design and engineering of the first portion of the transformative shoreline project on Cleveland’s East Side.

CHEERS was conducted in partnership with the City of Cleveland, the Port of Cleveland, the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Black Environmental Leaders Association. This award supports project partners in the development of full design for a significant portion of the overall CHEERS project including the shoreline expansion north and east of E. 55th Street as well as the extensive outer structure that would protect the Isle, a proposed 36-acre off-shore island north of the lakefront. Project partners are seeking additional funds for the design of the Isle and additional areas along the shoreline including a habitat loop.

Be sure to check out the CHEERS planning website.

Cleveland Comprehensive Policy Platform 

In 2021, to catalyze an urgent response to our water crisis, over 30 community organizations representing thousands of Clevelanders from across the city’s diverse neighborhoods joined together with the Alliance for the Great Lakes to develop the Cleveland Comprehensive Environmental Policy Platform. The plan includes detailed policy recommendations aimed at addressing our city’s water affordability crisis and helping to ensure water equity, such as banning water shutoffs when a resident is unable to pay, improving water quality through long-needed infrastructure upgrades, reducing contaminants and lead exposure in drinking water, and ensuring that Cleveland’s existing codified ordinances addressing stormwater runoff and drinking and recreational water are consistently enforced.

The Cuyahoga County Comprehensive Environmental Policy Platform is the second iteration, expanded with a county focus. It serves as a resource aligned with work in the following Priority Areas:

  • Water Quality & Infrastructure

  • Environmental & Economic Justice

  • Energy & Air Quality

  • Infrastructure & Transportation

  • Land & Green Spaces

VALUES STATEMENT

We believe Cuyahoga County must become a more sustainable, diverse, and equitable place for all people — regardless of color or background. All residents deserve a county that: values their lives and trusts their lived experiences; invests in communities; acts intentionally to be inclusive and sustainable; and listens and responds to all people.

Ohio Climate Justice Fund

The Ohio Climate Justice Fund (‘the Fund’ or ‘OCJF’) is complemented by an advisory committee of Ohio environmental advocates and leaders whose charge is to advise and guide investments in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) organizations in Ohio, working at the intersection of racial justice and climate action. BEL participates as a member of the OCJF advisory board.

Launched with seed funding and support from the George Gund Foundation, Energy Foundation and the Cleveland Foundation, the OCJF advances accessible community education and community listening efforts centered on creating a sustainable, equitable future for Ohio.

To date, grants have been awarded to 18 front line organizations from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Lima, Toledo, Warren and Youngstown, with a grant-making total of Four Hundred Seventy Thousand, Four Hundred and Twenty One ($470,421) dollars.

Black Landscapes Matter Speaker Series

The Black Landscapes Matter speaker series is designed to facilitate a state-wide conversation around the role of the built environment in enabling or inhibiting social equity and racial justice.

The conversations features a mix of national and local leaders and practitioners across disciplines and industries. The topic areas include public space design, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) experience in public space, parks and recreational access, public art and symbology, health and wellness, democracy/historical study, affordable housing and clean energy, and grassroots programming.

Black Landscapes Matter is provided with the support of the Energy Foundation.

Ohio Voices Informing Energy Choices Speaker Series

The Black Environmental Leaders Association (BEL) is committed to the advancement of 100% clean energy for all Ohioans. We recognize that without careful planning and deliberate policy, the benefits of renewable energy can flow towards existing privilege and wealth, leaving underrepresented and environmental justice communities without access to an equitable clean energy future. BEL counteracts that trend through education, advocacy and programming specifically designed to bring additional benefits to vulnerable communities. BEL is an active and engaged partner in leveraging more than $1.5M in projects to impact a positive pathway to just, equitable, carbon-free electric power systems by 2050.

The Ohio Voices Informing Energy Choices speaker series is designed to facilitate a state-wide grassroots conversation around the role of equitable clean energy options in underserved communities.

Ohio Voices is provided with the support of the Joyce Foundation.

 Global Shapers Cleveland Hub

Global Shapers Cleveland Hub and Black Environmental Leaders Association are proud to announce their formal partnership in 2021. This partnership seeks to incubate, empower, and support a diverse group of leaders and professionals within the sustainability and policy field across Northeast Ohio.

The Global Shapers Community, an initiative of the World Economic Forum, is an international network of young leaders. Created to empower youth to self-organize for impact and to amplify the voice of young leaders, the Shapers Community is a network of over 400 city-based hubs full of change-makers looking to positively impact the world. GS-CLE ’s goal is to leverage the passion of this diverse group of young leaders to create local change through a global lens.

GS-CLE and BEL are excited about the impactful work the two organizations are doing together. This partnership holds the potential to become a model of collaboration and intergenerational leadership development. Both organizations are committed to reclaiming a rich heritage where youth and elders are respected, honored, and valued.  

Environmental Justice Local Journalism Collaborative

Racial injustice, environmental injustice and the health of our democracy are inextricably linked; Gerrymandered districts deny our most impacted citizens’ concerns to be heard, and corruption in the political process acts as sand in the gears of good governance – preventing communities from taking back power. However, communities are not powerless to change their circumstances and confront environmental and racial injustices.

Progress is possible when communities build power, speak truth to power and build coalitions that shift the balance of power and result in real policy change. The advocacy and leadership of Mayor Carl Stokes and Representative Louis Stokes elevated environmental justice to the policy arena – eventually leading to the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Sustained advocacy of BIPOC community leaders, organizers and residents across Cleveland also advanced historic legislation to finally address the devastating impacts of lead exposure. Amidst heightened awareness and nationwide protests around the extent and depth of our nation’s racist history and enduring barriers – most acutely to the Black community’s health, prosperity, and basic safety – immediate and sustained action is needed.

It is urgent to leverage the power of our local news ecosystem and the local philanthropic community to help support information collaborations that lift up environmental justice narratives, stories and solutions led by BIPOC leaders, organizers, organizations and residents.

The Black Environmental Leaders Association, The Center for Community Solutions, Cleveland Foundation and The George Gund Foundation are partnering to test, refine and/or build out an environmental justice reporting project in Greater Cleveland to elevate BIPOC leaders and organizations taking action to improve the health of our communities, our climate, our environment and our democracy.