Community Shelter Board

Community Shelter Board is a collective impact organization leading the community’s response to homelessness by creating collaborations, developing innovative solutions, and investing in quality programs in Columbus and Franklin County. Community Shelter Board oversees an annual budget of $31 million to support homeless programs and services at 19 different provider organizations across the community. Last year, these programs ended homelessness for more than 12,000 people. Community Shelter Board is funded by the City of Columbus, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners, the United Way of Central Ohio, The Columbus Foundation, Nationwide Foundation, American Electric Power Foundation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the State of Ohio, and many other public and private investors. Melvin Schottenstein believed that it was not acceptable for any person to be homeless in the Columbus and Franklin County community, even for one night. He had a bottom line inability to accept any situation that left a man, woman or child without food or shelter. He worked closely with another local philanthropist, Nancy Jeffrey; and a local businessman, Bob Lazarus; to bring together both public and private funders to fashion a collective community response to homelessness. These three people were absolute champions around the issue of homelessness in Columbus, and were instrumental in founding the Community Shelter Board in 1986. They lead the community's response to homelessness, making an impact in three ways. 1. collaborating to bring together diverse organizations to work together as an efficient system, rather than as a fragmented set of resources 2. using an outcome-based funding model that measures performance, monitors programs success, and assures the system's effectiveness as a whole 3. combining innovative solutions and best practices with time-tested strategies to implement programs that quickly and stably house people in crisis.