Philanthropic Commitment

Improve Consulting and Training Group offers many services to increase the effectiveness and productivity of your team in a fun and engaging way. Improve provides training, team building, coaching and consulting services.

In an effort to give back to the community, Improve Consulting has partnered with the Cleveland Foundation to offer the Improve Consulting and Training Group: Bagby, Palmer Memorial Scholarship.

The scholarship offers funding to graduating high school seniors from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District or its inner-ring suburbs who will be attending a qualified educational institution and meet eligibility criteria as described below:

Currently enrolled or enrolling, full-time, in an accredited, qualified educational institution (college, university, etc.) in undergraduate course work acceptable toward a degree
Has an identifiable course focus of study in one of the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, or math
Has maintained, at least, a 3.5 cumulative high school grade-point average (4.0 scale)
Can demonstrate consistent community service for each year of high school (a minimum of one significant project per year)
Has evidence of financial need

Over the past few years, nearly $10,000 has been awarded to students who now attend Case Western Reserve University, Ball State University, Ohio State University, Eastern Michigan University, and Kent State University.

Click here to read more about our Bagby, Palmer Memorial Scholarship

Improve also gives back to the Cleveland Non-Profit Community by donating our time, using our talents and contributing financially.

Revenue generated from youth development services is donated back into the community in the form of scholarships, internships, school supplies, college application fees, computers, etc.

Featured Articles

Smart Business – April 28, 2014 Ellen Burts-Cooper: Showing the heart of your business through philanthropy
Crains – September 9, 2019 – Celebrating African-American Philanthropy
The Cleveland Foundation – March 10, 2020 – Stories of Giving: Dr. Ellen Burts-Cooper
The Cleveland Foundation – August 17, 2022 – Celebrating Black Philanthropy: Our Hope, Our Future Giving Circle
African American Philanthropy Committee – August 16, 2023 – Extending a Branch: African American Philanthropy Committee influences past, present and future givers

African American Philanthropy Committee

African American Philanthropy Committee influences past, present and future givers

In 1993, former Cleveland Foundation president & CEO Steven A. Minter founded the African American Outreach Advisory Committee to magnify and unite the collective impact of Black donors connected to the Cleveland Foundation. “His major goal was to create this group of like-minded individuals who would be focused on coming up with strategies about how to give back to the Black community,” said Terri Eason, the foundation’s senior director of advancement equity initiatives.

What started as a “lunch bunch” of donors became a formal group that was supported by the Cleveland Foundation unilaterally. Today, the group provides leadership on critical issues regarding the current and future state of giving in the Black community.

In 2001, the name changed to the African American Philanthropy Committee (AAPC). Eason shares that “[they] put together a strategic plan that focused specifically on engaging, informing and educating individual donors so that they can understand how philanthropy can help with building community, wealth preservation, and the like.”