Jennifer Thomas works ideas hard, trying to nurture them into industries and businesses that will enhance the quality of life in northeastern Ohio. The job isn't easy, but it sounds like a blast.
As director of the Civic Innovation Lab, Thomas aims to rekindle entrepreneurialism in a region accustomed to thinking that limping along is the highest aspiration.
Part shepherd, part advocate, part coach, part marketer, and large part goad, Thomas juggles would-be inventors, veteran businesspeople in need of a prod and community pillars ready to help.
The South Euclid native and Denison University graduate worked in finance in Boston, in pharmaceuticals and the music industry in New York, and in digital networking in Cleveland. She has mined innovation for some time.
“I don't know if there's one boil-it-down word for what I do,” she says.
Thomas is helping the area shed its training wheels.
We need more dynamos like her if greater Cleveland is to trade its stigma as Rust Belt Relic for the luster of being Green Belt Pioneer. Thomas is encouraged that Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson held a sustainability summit this summer. Now it's time to link with her shop.
“The county can fund projects, but we can fund projects that can then go get funded by the county,” she says in an interview in the Starbucks in the Hanna Building, where the Lab is located. “The more resources the better.”
The more creativity the better, too.
The Lab offers funding of up to $30,000 for projects that can improve the economy in greater Cleveland. Operating on an annual $525,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation, it began in September 2003 and has granted nearly $1.5 million to launch 52 ventures. In 2008 alone, it generated $9.4 million in economic output and created 128 jobs. Among projects it has launched:
- MedCity News Service, a news service devoted to the medical industry, formulated by former Plain Dealer reporters Mary Vanac and Chris Seper
- Ray's Mountain Bike Park, an indoor mountain bike park in Cleveland with a fantastic, sponsor-heavy website
- BeeDance, Michael Dungan's waste repurposing/recycling program, “upcycling” designed to benefit artists and educators.
The seed money aims to “provide infrastructure to the new idea so they can leverage it to get more money,” says Thomas. A team of 22 volunteer mentors reviews applications and selects entrepreneurs to support.
In April, Thomas said she expected a “blowout” in applications. She was prescient; there were 80 in early May and another 90 in September. “We received all sorts of economic development ideas. We received ideas that aren't economic development but are very creative. Mostly we receive proposals that are in our funding focus of attracting and retaining talent, supporting entrepreneurship, building a new industry or making downtown more vibrant.”
Perhaps more encouraging than the volume of applications is their significance: they mean that northeastern Ohio is becoming more progressive, less risk-averse. “Once you're funded,” she says, “you can publicly fail. The fact that so many people are applying is an indication that people are willing to take these risks.
“Because of the economy, it's even more critical to have this entrepreneurial support,” she says. “Everyone is seeing an uptick in activity as people lose jobs and look for more creative ways to make a living and have an impact.”
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