In an effort to improve Cleveland Heights neighborhoods and create a new kind of social interaction, FutureHeights is now offering mini-grants of up to $1,000 for neighbors to get together for improvement projects.
 
“It’s a way to strengthen our neighborhoods,” says FutureHeights executive director Deanna Bremer Fisher. “The way we do that work is with our residents and strengthen their assets.”
 
The grass-roots p... Read more >

 More than 3,500 professionals in marketing, communications, social media and public relations are expected to attend  2015 Content Marketing World – the largest event of its kind  -- on September 8-11 at the Cleveland Convention Center.

Over 100 speakers from companies including Kraft Foods, Avery Dennison and LinkedIn will cover the basics of content marketing to specific marketing strategies used by successful com... Read more >

Custom printing company Jakprints has always been on the cutting edge with its technology as well as  its commitment to the environment. Jakprints recently teamed up with Heidelberg USA to bring the Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor press to its offices. The green-friendly press is the first  of its kind to be installed in North America, says CEO Nick DeTomaso.
 
While Jakprints has been doing digital printing for the past 13 of its 16 years in ... Read more >

Citizens Bank is giving the Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI) a $1 million line of credit to help finance loans to new and expanding businesses. ECDI provides loans between $500 and $350,000 to business owners and entrepreneurs trying to start or grow their businesses who might otherwise not be able to secure a loan.
 
ECDI's Cleveland office will receive the majority of the money, says Eric Diamond, executive vice president ... Read more >

When Jason Minter has fond memories of his grandmother, Connie Pugh, and her fascination with PBS programming. “Every Sunday we would go to my grandma’s after church and she was always watching PBS,” he recalls. “She would say, ‘PBS brings all these cultures to me right in my living room.’ My grandmother never left the city.”

Years later, in 2012, Minter was in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy as a teaching assistant with Texas A&... Read more >

Mark Morrison and the cofounders of Windrush, which provides a web publishing tool for nonprofits, were looking to take their company to the next level.

Morrison suggested the company go on the road to his hometown of Cleveland and join the FlashStarts 2015 summer accelerator program. So in May, Morrison and his two partners did just that.
 
Windrush helps social impact organizations produce more than just a white paper while trying to get their messages acro... Read more >

As a small printing company in Warrensville Heights, Porath Print Solutions has seen its share of struggles and issues in the non-profits and small businesses the 16-person company has served since 1968. So this year, Porath chief problem solver Gerry Engelhart decided it was time to start sharing his knowledge with a bi-monthly seminar series.

“Our boss is a very community-oriented person,” says Porath’s Rachel Gordon. “We all kept seeing our clie... Read more >

Mel McGee has been a computer programmer and teacher for the past 20 years. Now, as CEO of We Can Code IT, McGee and community outreach director Shana Mysko are holding coding boot camps that are targeted at getting women and minorities careers in IT fields. The boot camps are held in their new offices at LaunchHouse.

“There will be one million unfilled jobs in IT by 2020,” explains McGee. “It’s a very in-demand industry and it ... Read more >

Mike Kister likes to look out for the little guy. As a veteran entrepreneur – having started four internet service, e-commerce and web companies – Kister’s latest venture, Acceleration Systems, offers faster internet speeds and enhanced bandwidth on a subscription basis to small companies that previously couldn’t afford such services.

With Acceleration Systems’ cloud-based tools, customers can see download speeds 10 times faster and uplo... Read more >

When students head to college, they expect to received four years of learning and, hopefully, to graduate with a career plan and a good job lined up. But Tom Roulston noticed a disturbing discrepancy. “Seventy percent of seniors really don’t know what they want to do when they graduate,” he says. “And 50 percent are unemployed or underemployed when they graduate.”
 
So Roulston created Trust Navigator, a multi-tiered program that sup... Read more >

Saidah Farrell has always enjoyed baking with her two daughters. While cupcakes were their favorite confection to make, the three always used a box mix. But when Farrell lost her job as a help desk manager almost six years ago, she decided it was time for a career change. “When you lose your job, what are you going to do,” she asks. “You either find another job or go back to school.” Farrell decided to go back to school.
 
In 2010 Farrell enrol... Read more >

Seventeen companies in various stages of development pitched their causes to about 30 local investors last Thursday, June 4 at MAGNET’s ProtoTech: Invest at the Metropolitan at The 9. All of the companies are in significant fund-raising mode.

“It was a good event, it was a lot of fun,” says Dave Crain, executive director of the Incubator at MAGNET and ProtoTech organizer. “I don’t think people realized how many g... Read more >