CINCINNATI -- United Way of Greater Cincinnati and the Child Poverty Collaborative announced a major gift Thursday to help fund a program aimed at lifting Hamilton County families out of poverty.
Martha and Carl H. Lindner III have committed $100,000 per year over the next five years to support the Child Poverty Collaborative’s One to One Family Initiative. The Child Poverty Collaborative is convening One to One, a network of service providers that will work with low-income families to test new strategies, share information, improve practices and coordinate services.
One to One was announced in October 2016 as one of the ways the Child Poverty Collaborative would be working toward its goal of helping to lift 5,000 families and 10,000 children out of poverty within the next five years.
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United Way CEO Rob Reifsnyder told WCPO in April that the organization was just months away from launching the initiative.
The Lindners’ gift will be recognized as part of United Way’s 2017 annual campaign and, outside of United Way itself, is currently the largest and most long-term of all contributions to the Child Poverty Collaborative.
“Martha and I thank God for His many blessings on our family,” Carl Lindner III said in a news release. “We are very excited to share some of those blessings by partnering with our community to help solve the childhood poverty crisis here in the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.”
Carl Lindner III
One to One aims to partner with families to help them overcome barriers, access services and achieve the goals they set for themselves on a path to self-sufficiency. For the 2017-2018, the goal of One to One is to test a number of approaches with 500 families, measure effectiveness and build upon the approaches that work best. The five-year goal is to live 5,000 out of poverty and toward self-sufficiency.
“This exceptional gift from Martha and Carl Lindner III is a great example of our community stepping up to take on child poverty,” Reifsnyder said in the news release. “As United Way focuses even more on children and families in poverty, we look forward to spreading what works from the One to One initiative across our 10-county region.”
United Way is a founding partner of the Child Poverty Collaborative and provides resources and staff to manage its work. The collaborative has been around since late 2015 when business, community, religious, nonprofit and government leaders joined together to launch the effort.
“The generous support from the Lindner family allows us the time and flexibility to test and learn,” Lynn Marmer, the collaborative’s executive director, said in the release. “Business as usual is not going to be good enough to help us reach our ambitious goal.”
Carl Lindner III, son of the founder and co-CEO of American Financial Group Inc., has sold more than $27 million worth of AFG stock since February 3, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The sales reduced his overall stake in the company by 245,000 shares, but he remains the company’s largest shareholder, controlling nearly 9 percent of the company’s stock.
More information about the Child Poverty Collaborative can be found on its home page.
