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Old furniture store now houses philanthropy

A philanthropic experiment opens the doors on its new home Friday.  People's Liberty started last year, awarding a pair of large grants.  Now, it has offices and workspace for its support team and future grantees. 

The Haile and Johnson foundations started People's Liberty as an experiment.  Eric Avner is CEO of People's Liberty, and vice president of the Haile Foundation.  He says the plan is to assist individuals who have ideas that could transform Cincinnati. 

“It’s something that hasn’t really been tried here, other than some scholarships or some arts grants or things like that, which have been good.  But this is really trying to change the paradigm. Can we have individuals function almost as non-profits?  Could they be doing the work in the community as a non-profit?”

Last July, People's Liberty handed out a pair of $100,000 grants:

  • to design and build tiny houses.
  • to create a music publishing platform for local artists.

But there really wasn't a dedicated place to do the work.  Until now.

Credit Bill Rinehart / WVXU
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WVXU
People's Liberty staffers on the third floor.

Operations director Jake Hodesh says People’s Liberty rented the former Globe Furniture building from 3CDC in Over-the-Rhine and turned the top floors into office space.

“One of our tag lines is 'philanthropy is more than just cutting checks.'  And, to us, that means providing our grantees with an opportunity to have a Class A office space,” he says.

There’s individual desks, white boards, conference rooms, video projectors with drop-down screens, a large kitchenette, and a phone booth.  There’s no phone in it.  It’s a small, glass-walled room for private conversations.

But the first floor, Hodesh says, was an opportunity to continue promoting ideas and to keep the building accessible and the welcoming.  Three times a year the main entrance, a gallery, will be turned over to the winner of a $15,000 grant. 

“The idea there is not for artists to hang past work.  It’s not even really for artists to come in and hang a show of their new work.  It’s really for artists, individuals,  civic-minded entrepreneurs, to think about the space and be able to transform it in a really provocative way,” Hodesh says.

The first exhibit in the storefront is "Good Eggs" from artist Jason Snell.  It features about 50 coin operated candy dispensers filled with plastic eggs.   Each egg contains a suggestion of something positive to do in the community.

That will open, along with the rest of the Globe Building, Friday.

Bill Rinehart started his radio career as a disc jockey in 1990. In 1994, he made the jump into journalism and has been reporting and delivering news on the radio ever since.