A third significant development this year has moved the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative forward in ways it hasn’t seen in years.
The nonprofit, founded 30 years ago by the business community concerned about Cincinnati Public Schools’ high-school dropout rates, has received a two-year $450,000 grant from the PNC Foundation.
It is the largest grant given to a local nonprofit from the PNC Foundation, whose sponsor PNC has had deep ties to the collaborative that have only gotten stronger in recent months. PNC has 50 branches in Greater Cincinnati and is the third-largest bank in the region, with $8.9 billion in local deposits. Greater Cincinnati is one of PNC’s top markets of its 55 regions across the country.
The PNC funds will support financial literacy, money management, and organizational initiatives in 10 schools within the Cincinnati Public Schools, North College Hill Schools and Winton Woods school districts.
The grant has established and will support CYC PNC Scholars, a corporate group mentoring program dedicated to exposing 20 students to career pathways in the banking industry. The program will include workshops, field trips, role-playing, shadowing and paid summer roles. A kick-off event at the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum recently brought together 20 PNC employees and 24 students for a day of icebreakers, bonding and empowerment.
The PNC money follows the growth of the collaborative’s board and its hiring of a new CEO as significant developments this year. In September, the collaborative added 10 new board members, creating a board nearly a third bigger than it was previously with its new members bringing significant business depth to the organization. In January, the organization hired as its new CEO Amy Thompson, who had overseen the leadership programs at the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber since 2016.
The collaborative’s ties to PNC run deep. The organization’s past board chair, Jack Geiger, is married to the former PNC market leader, Kay Geiger, and one of the new board members added in September is Hammad Siddiqi, vice president of community development banking at PNC. Siddiqi has been employed with PNC for the last 17 years in various departments, including retail, business banking and asset management. He currently serves as the vice president of community development banking, working on PNC’s community reinvestment act commitments and responsibilities.