Every great dream begins with a dreamer.
Harriet Tubman
Freedom Fighter, Activist + Dreamer
We Are the Sun
By: Jamaica Gilmer + ThirdSpace Action Lab
Freedom Dreaming Projects
A sandbox for decolonized, future-forward project development — where leaders reimagine, and practice the kind of institution-building their communities have always deserved. Leaders participating in the healing infrastructure cohort/programming are eligible to submit proposals.
Submitted project proposals must align with Our Practice, prioritize our Four Objectives and employ Anti-racist Community Development principles. Freedom Dreaming projects are experiments or pilots that cultivate the radical imagination, channeling Afrofuturism in pursuit of a liberated free and joyful world.
Since 2023, CFDC has invested nearly ONE MILLION DOLLARS in Freedom Dreaming projects in the greater Cleveland area.
PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING PILOT
Participation in CFDC has been critical to the continued success of People's Budget Cleveland. While nearly a dozen funders have supported PB CLE's work advocating for residents to have real power to make real decisions over common resources since its inception in 2021, CFDC has been our most consistent and substantial source of funds. In 2023, PB CLE ran a ballot initiative campaign, Issue 38, that garnered 33,000 votes from Clevelanders, 49.1% of the total, just less than what was needed to pass. We are now launching a $100,000 PB pilot in one Cleveland neighborhood that will run through 2026; CFDC fund is the core funder. Our participation in the coalition has also helped us build new relationships and new knowledge that help advance this work of building new civic infrastructure -- in this case, a People's Budget process, aka community budgeting or participatory budgeting, that will engage hundreds of residents in ways never before.
Jonathan Welle
Executive Director, Cleveland Owns
St. CLAIR-SUPERIOR HOUSING PROJECT
More Than Housing Project - A Catalyst for Community Wealth
Through an RFP with the City of Cleveland land bank RFP for infill development, the coalition was awarded 27 parcel in the St. Clair- Superior neighborhood for development.
Our housing work in St. Clair–Superior is a proof-of-concept for what’s possible when affordability, design quality, and community ownership move together. We’re piloting new housing typologies, supporting emerging design teams, shared-equity models, and flexible financing to lower cost burdens and build long-term wealth for residents, while treating every project as both a housing product and a Black development institution-building effort.
But the impact doesn’t stop at the front door. Each project is designed to:
Grow local wealth and talent - spotlighting neighborhood entrepreneurs, artists, and tradespeople through pop-up markets, apprenticeships, and micro-grants
Invest in emerging developers + design team - lowering the barriers to entry for emerging developers, construction, and civic leadership through partnerships and professional relationship cultivation.
Center community voice - documenting the neighborhood’s history and milestones through resident-led storytelling, not outside narratives
Build leadership pipelines - equipping residents with organizing skills to shape the project’s future and their neighborhood’s
Scale what works - turning every lesson learned into an open playbook other Cleveland neighborhoods, and the city itself, can use to fight disinvestment and displacement
This is development built with the community, measured by the community, and designed to replicate.
A three-hour to two day interactive session where participants explore how racism is embedded in structural systems, using storytelling and data to examine the roots and realities of modern racial inequity.
Explore how racism impacts Latine individuals, affecting personal well-being and community development through cultural and historical lenses.
Examine the racialization of Latine identities in the U.S., including how census categories like "Hispanic" and "Race" shape our demographics and experiences.
Celebrate Latine resilience and identity, recognizing culture, history, and community as sources of strength and empowerment.
Foster cross-racial solidarity, addressing the ways racism has divided communities and advancing collective movements for racial equity and social transformation.
RACIAL EQUITY INSTITUE WORKSHOPS + LATINE CHALLENGES
GET OUT THE VOTE: VOTE SQUAD
Democracy at the Doorstep
The Vote Squad is the Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition’s peer-to-peer, relationship-based civic engagement program — built on the belief that the most powerful conversation about voting happens person to person, neighbor to neighbor. Voting is just one part of ongoing civic power-building: our canvassers treat democracy as a daily practice, not a once-every-few-years event, consistently showing up at the doorsteps of Clevelanders in historically marginalized wards with the lowest voter turnout rates.
TheVote Squad puts trained community canvassers directly into the Central neighborhood and beyond to:
Register and educate neighbors — door-to-door voter registration, vote-by-mail assistance, and voter pledge engagement, all nonpartisan and judgment-free
Build relationships, not just lists — direct, repeated contact that turns one-time conversations into lasting civic connection
Reflect the community they serve — canvassers are residents organizing their own neighbors, not outside operatives
Remove real barriers to voting — pairing outreach with practical support like transportation and ballot-request help
Feed what they learn back to the movement — field reports and resident stories that sharpen outreach and surface the issues that matter most locally
Because the data is clear and consistent across voter-engagement research: person-to-person contact is still the single most effective way to turn eligible residents into lasting voters — and the Vote Squad is how Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition builds that power block by block, door by door.
COMISSIONED RESEARCH
This report is grounded in a qualitative research process designed to elevate the lived experience, wisdom, and strategies of BIL (Black, Indigenous, and Latine) civic leaders in Cleveland. Between August and September 2025, members of the Cleveland Freedom Dreams Coalition conducted structured interviews with seven local leaders across a range of community-based, faith-rooted, and issue-driven organizations.
PEOPLE’S SOLUTIONS LAB
The People’s Solutions Lab is a collaborative initiative that seeks to empower Cleveland community members to co-create practical, people-centered solutions to today’s most pressing issues. Rooted in equity, inclusion, and innovation, The People’s Solutions Lab will bring together diverse voices, activists, community builders, and organizers to imagine and implement strategies that are grounded in lived experience and driven by collective wisdom.
Through this participatory event, we seek to nurture real life ideas that will, in time, lead to transformational change. At its core, The People's Solutions Lab is not just about solving problems—it's about reshaping systems with and for the people most impacted by them. By the end of the event, our collective goals include:
Ensure community members are #ElectionReady for the upcoming Municipal Primary and General Elections,
Engage in dialogue around what it takes to turn ideas and challenges into policy change and
Present and socialize our collective ideas with candidates running for office to educate them about our priorities.
CLEVELAND PULSE PODCAST
This show brings you real stories, real people, and real solutions that keep Cleveland’s community spirit alive and strong. Each episode dives into a powerful theme shaping the Land. From civic action and social justice to arts, business, and neighborhood transformation. We feature thought leaders, change-makers, and everyday voices who are building a better Cleveland, one story at a time.
Our Mission: To educate, activate, and connect Clevelanders through storytelling, civic engagement, and action-driven dialogue.
GET IN TOUCH
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Chavone Nash – Project Director, ThirdSpace Action Lab
chavone@3rdspaceactionlab.co