Strengthening Communities: A Strategic Partnership Between Saint Luke’s and St. Croix Foundations
At Saint Luke’s Foundation, every conversation, engagement, and partnership reinforce our commitment to our mission. Our long-standing relationship with the St. Croix Foundation—rooted in our shared ABFE membership and strengthened by our leaders’ service on the Umoja Circle planning committee since 2021—has been a journey of mutual community-facing values that has inspired us to engage more closely. Over the years, our shared experiences have laid the groundwork for a dynamic partnership, culminating in our recent virtual engagement where our boards and staff exchanged ideas on operationalizing equity and implementing responsive, participatory grantmaking.
This virtual meeting marked the latest phase in our strategic learning partnership as we continue our strategy plan review and refinement process. At Saint Luke’s Foundation, we are committed to continuous learning and to improving our strategies to improve health outcomes in Cleveland. With our strategic plan now seven years old, we recognize that our work and mission demand long-term solutions, making this review an opportune time to pause, reassess, and refresh our approach. During the January virtual session, our board and staff, together with the board and staff from the St. Croix Foundation, discussed strategies for advancing equity through community responsive grantmaking and addressed the challenges and successes we face in our respective communities. Considering Cleveland’s industrial history and St. Croix’s culture and deep historical challenges as a territory of the United States of America, our ongoing dialogue underscored how our shared focus on serving similar demographics and addressing economic disenfranchisement unites us as place-based foundations.
Looking ahead, Saint Luke’s Foundation is proud to announce in-person learning summits that will bring together our board, staff, select strategy partners, and resident advancement committee members with the St. Croix Foundation’s board, staff, and service delivery partners. This cross-cultural, peer-to-peer exchange will offer an opportunity to witness firsthand the innovative grantmaking practices and community-focused strategies of the St. Croix team and their partners in service to the community. Moreover, this summit represents the next phase of our ongoing strategic learning journey: we will engage with the St. Croix Foundation in St. Croix by collaborating with their board, staff, and community partners, and later, we look forward to hosting them in Cleveland to further exchange insights and practices. At that point, they will explore our city’s history, challenges, and our approaches to operationalizing equity and responsive, participatory grantmaking—along with valuable perspectives from our strategy partners.
This engagement is more than a collaboration—it is a moment of genuine connection that showcases the transformative power of relationship building, cross-cultural learning, and our commitment to building trusting partnerships to achieve better outcomes. At Saint Luke’s Foundation, we believe that by sharing our experiences and insights, we can deepen our impact and set a higher standard for collaboration in philanthropy.
We invite you to stay tuned for exciting updates as our learning exchange journey unfolds.