Foundation Luminaries Who Have Provided Key Behind-the-Scenes Leadership
Belle SherwinSocial Services Champion on the First Foundation BoardBelle Sherwin (see video) served on the foundation’s board from 1917 until 1924, and she and her sister, Prudence, added substantially to the foundation’s pool of unrestricted monies with testamentary gifts (worth $6.5 million at the time of...Read Bio in Timeline James R. GarfieldFirst Legal AdviserJames Rudolph Garfield, a Columbia University-educated lawyer who began practice in Cleveland in 1888, was the first legal counsel of the Cleveland Foundation. The son of Ohio-born President James A. Garfield, he handled the foundation’s legal affairs...Read Bio in Timeline Frances Southworth GoffKept the Foundation Strong after the Death of Her HusbandFrances Southworth Goff was in every respect the equal of her husband, Frederick Harris Goff. A woman of character and intelligence, she came from a family that helped to settle the portion of northeastern Ohio called the...Read Bio in Timeline Dorothy RuthAssistant to the Foundation’s First Four CEOsDorothy Ruth was, for many Clevelanders, the face of the Cleveland Foundation for more than 40 years. A graduate of Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University, Miss Ruth, as she was respectfully called by generations...Read Bio in Timeline Harold T. ClarkVisionary Philanthropist Behind the Risk-Taking Greater Cleveland Associated FoundationIn the early 1960s, when he was in his mid-70s, attorney Harold Terry Clark set about to reinvigorate the grantmaking of the Cleveland Foundation. Clark had been a foundation board member during the 1940s and ’50s, but...Read Bio in Timeline Kent H. SmithIndispensable Chairman of the Greater Cleveland Associated FoundationThe willingness to tackle intractable problems head-on exhibited in the early 1960s by the Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation (GCAF), whose merger with the Cleveland Foundation in 1967 reinvigorated the staid, 53-year-old philanthropy, was in keeping with the...Read Bio in Timeline Malvin E. BankOutside Counsel and National Philanthropic LeaderThompson Hine LLP, a business law firm established in Cleveland in 1911, celebrated its centenary by presenting the first Malvin E. Bank Award for Exemplary Client Service, named in honor of Thompson Hine’s distinguished specialist in federal...Read Bio in Timeline Robert E. Eckardt, DR PHAccomplished Grantmaker and Executive Vice PresidentRobert E. Eckardt, executive vice president of the Cleveland Foundation, has worn many hats during his long and accomplished career with the foundation. Eckardt joined the program staff in 1982 with a master’s degree in public health...Read Bio in Timeline
Every organization has its unsung leaders—associates who make invaluable contributions largely behind the scenes and outside the realm of public awareness. The Cleveland Foundation is no exception. The occasion of the foundation’s centennial anniversary provides an opportunity to remember those individuals, working in a variety of capacities, whose dedication to the foundation kept the flame of philanthropy alive and burning ever brighter. An outstanding few of these largely unheralded torchbearers are recognized here.
Belle SherwinSocial Services Champion on the First Foundation BoardBelle Sherwin (see video) served on the foundation’s board from 1917 until 1924, and she and her sister, Prudence, added substantially to the foundation’s pool of unrestricted monies with testamentary gifts (worth $6.5 million at the time of...Read Bio in Timeline 
James R. GarfieldFirst Legal AdviserJames Rudolph Garfield, a Columbia University-educated lawyer who began practice in Cleveland in 1888, was the first legal counsel of the Cleveland Foundation. The son of Ohio-born President James A. Garfield, he handled the foundation’s legal affairs...Read Bio in Timeline 
Frances Southworth GoffKept the Foundation Strong after the Death of Her HusbandFrances Southworth Goff was in every respect the equal of her husband, Frederick Harris Goff. A woman of character and intelligence, she came from a family that helped to settle the portion of northeastern Ohio called the...Read Bio in Timeline 
Dorothy RuthAssistant to the Foundation’s First Four CEOsDorothy Ruth was, for many Clevelanders, the face of the Cleveland Foundation for more than 40 years. A graduate of Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University, Miss Ruth, as she was respectfully called by generations...Read Bio in Timeline 
Harold T. ClarkVisionary Philanthropist Behind the Risk-Taking Greater Cleveland Associated FoundationIn the early 1960s, when he was in his mid-70s, attorney Harold Terry Clark set about to reinvigorate the grantmaking of the Cleveland Foundation. Clark had been a foundation board member during the 1940s and ’50s, but...Read Bio in Timeline 
Kent H. SmithIndispensable Chairman of the Greater Cleveland Associated FoundationThe willingness to tackle intractable problems head-on exhibited in the early 1960s by the Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation (GCAF), whose merger with the Cleveland Foundation in 1967 reinvigorated the staid, 53-year-old philanthropy, was in keeping with the...Read Bio in Timeline 
Malvin E. BankOutside Counsel and National Philanthropic LeaderThompson Hine LLP, a business law firm established in Cleveland in 1911, celebrated its centenary by presenting the first Malvin E. Bank Award for Exemplary Client Service, named in honor of Thompson Hine’s distinguished specialist in federal...Read Bio in Timeline 
Robert E. Eckardt, DR PHAccomplished Grantmaker and Executive Vice PresidentRobert E. Eckardt, executive vice president of the Cleveland Foundation, has worn many hats during his long and accomplished career with the foundation. Eckardt joined the program staff in 1982 with a master’s degree in public health...Read Bio in Timeline