Every community has a story.
That story is made of all of its people and all of its parts, and the sum is greater than the parts.
Within every community are people, places, and moments in time, and every person in it carries a story worth hearing. We see the community as the catalyst for its own success. When its voices are heard and shared, it can see what it already holds, combine it in new ways, and build the strongest version of itself. Our work is grounded in the award-winning Asset-Based Paradigm and more than thirty years of research and practice alongside Cleveland and Ohio communities.
“It was the creation of conditions in which communities could see, connect, and use what they already held.”Gina Z. Weisblat, Hope as Infrastructure (2026)
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”Attributed to Margaret Mead
Citizenship is something we practice together.
Citizenship Health is not about legal status. It is about being an active denizen of a community, someone whose health, safety, and well-being are sustained through shared responsibility. Health is a public good, and the health of a community's people is critical to building community and life success.
Equity, not just equality
Understanding the people we serve and the contexts that shape their health.
Build on existing assets
Every community holds assets that are unrealized and underused. We start there.
The ecosystem matters
Families, schools, neighborhoods, and institutions shape each person, and each person shapes them back.
Shared responsibility
Rights and responsibilities travel together, for individuals and for the systems around them.
Students today, alumni now
Health Professions Affinity Community (HPAC)
Student teams identify a health challenge in their own community, research it, design a response, and share what they learned. Since 2011, HPAC has shown what young people can do when we treat them as community leaders.
Learn about HPAC This yearHPAC at Tri-C High Tech Academy
One hundred and four students from across the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, taking college classes at Tri-C, are working in 22 teams on projects from gun violence and asthma to teen jobs and a student newspaper, building toward Scholars Day on April 16, 2027.
See their work Work with usInnovation Incubator
We help organizations assess where they are, find the assets they already have, and design a path to the next level, from program design and evaluation to braided funding and sustainability.
How we work NewTime, space, and story
Every community has a story: the people, places, and moments that shaped a community, the context that guided its political determinants of health, and the connections that keep it resilient. With the Asset-Based Paradigm diagram and the poster archive.
Read the idea Coming soonCitizenship Health Community Journal
A home for voices that are too often unheard: young people, residents, and communities sharing what they have learned through writing, music, and art.
About the Journal WorkforceCitizenship Health CHW Academy
One community health worker training program built to Ohio's standard curriculum, with five pathways: adults starting out, violence interrupters and credible messengers, HPAC high school students, working CHWs, and college students headed into the health professions.
See the pathways IdeasResearch and Ideas
Education innovation, community and neighborhood, community safety and healing, and measuring what matters. We describe what each tool measures and what it has shown.
Our research
Communities already hold many assets that are not money. When we recognize them, reorganize them, and put them to work, they become the foundation for lasting change.
We work in partnership
Each of our partners is its own organization with its own mission, leadership, and programs. We work alongside them, and we link to them so you can learn more directly.
Strengthening Our Students (SOS)
Our main partner. Together we bring HPAC to Tri-C High Tech Academy and share a joint agenda that includes Healthy Home and family-facing programs on the social determinants of health.
Renounce Denounce Gang Intervention Program
A credible-messenger violence interruption organization on Cleveland's east side. CHI supports its research, analytics, and strategic planning.
TYWIST and community partners
We also work with TYWIST, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Community of Hope, and Cuyahoga Community College, which hosts the High Tech Academy program.