Mediating Organizations, Private Government, and Civil Society: Disinvestment Through the Preservation of Wealth in Cleveland, Ohio (1950-1990)

Description

This study uses nonprofit community organizations in the Union Miles, University Circle and Midtown Corridor neighborhoods of Cleveland, Ohio to reflect from the-bottom-up community organizing practiced not simply by grassroots property owners, but by the leadership of resource-rich private institutions, and business owners in a major North American city. These organizations illustrate the private government of civil society and the promise and possibilities of private action affecting the public good that we have come to associate with the nonprofit sector. Through this study, we observe a process that assigns to nonprofits the nurturing of civil society by intertwining public and private players in decision-making, in allocating resources outside the bounds of government, as a continuum of actions of individuals or organizations, as the outcome of the aggregate of customs that comprise American culture and freedoms. Describing the nature of these organizations and their ceaseless role in helping Cleveland preserve its wealth and civil society offers us insights as we labor to educate our legislators into adopting ways to utilize nonprofits; reform the nonprofit sector to meet the needs of changing society; educate nonprofit leaders and managers; duplicate the system of checks and balances the private sector has with government and business in other countries in the aftermath of September 11, 2001