The Greater Cleveland area has many nonprofit resources designed to help underprivileged individuals. Understanding what each social service/nonprofit does and how to access its services, however, can be a tedious task. Especially for individuals affected by poverty—factors such as time, literacy level, and understanding of social services can stand in the way of getting the help they need. 

Cleveland CommunityLink is a centralized, digital database for social services. Accessible via https://clecommunitylink.com, the platform our team created is free for anyone to access anytime. The web platform, currently in beta, has two main components: 1)A Resource Finder Database and 2)Individual Encyclopedia Pages about social services. 

The Resource Finder database organizes social service resources by zip code and categories such as health, food, and legal help and includes brief descriptions of what services nonprofit organizations offer. The individual encyclopedia pages detail more information on the services an organization offers, how to get involved, and includes historical and general information about the social services.

We are raising funds to make our web platform more sustainable, collaborative, and accessible. Firstly, we currently self-fund the project and need funds to pay for our yearly server costs. Secondly, we seek to upgrade to the same engine Wikipedia is using, MediaWiki, in order to facilitate better group collaboration and future digital upgrades. Lastly, we seek to set up a text messaging system that can help individuals access our database without the need for internet.

Learn more about our project by visiting our Resource Finder, by following us Instagram, or by liking our page on Facebook! On social media, each week we highlight nonprofit organizations in the Greater Cleveland area.