Culture.CLE

Culture.CLE is a dinner series hosted by Global Shapers Cleveland—a local “hub” of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community—in partnership with immigrant-owned/operated restaurants in the Cleveland area. Individuals buy tickets for a private meal, cooking demonstration, and Q&A with chefs/owners to learn about their stories and the history behind their food. Migrant-owned restaurants often rely on inconsistently updated social media like Facebook instead of websites to spread the word about their services. But as Facebook becomes less popular as a social media platform, and many pages have outdated menus and hours, it is an unreliable way of learning about the delicious food these businesses offer. Culture.CLE uses the trust Global Shapers Cleveland has earned from more than ten years serving Cleveland to invite customers into immigrant-owned/operated restaurants for a curated dining experience that expands our city's cultural horizons—and palate!

Your support will supercharge our efforts to reach a larger audience and build the capacity of the restaurants we work with over the next six months . 

• We envision leveraging 60% of the prize money to create a fund from which we can pay restaurant's service costs and exploratory fees when we sample restaurants and have our in person contract signings. Currently, different members of our organization have to front the money for every event beforehand. This has been challenging because we simply don’t have $600-$1000 on hand to give to them at contract signing. So, we host events when we our members have the money to do so. This is a huge risk for us to take on as young professionals, as we are relying on the event to go well to get a full reimbursement. Your support takes the burden off our members and provide an essential financial cushion for our organization to support more events. 
• The remaining 40% of the prize money will be used to improve our operational infrastructure so that we can provide better marketing and management tools to both our audience and our contracted restaurants. We'll pay for subscriptions to platforms like Mailchimp to communicate with our audience more efficiently and provide small stipends to our members for the coordination and marketing support they currently provide for free to the restaurants we partner with. 

We believe trying new foods expands one’s cultural horizons and brings Clevelanders together. Moses (Cameroonian) and Luciana (Brazilian), who co-lead the Cleveland Shapers are children of immigrants and recognize the value of introducing people to new cultures and culinary experiences.

Global Shapers seeks to make local impact through a global lens and Culture.CLE is a perfect reflection of those values. While Culture.CLE has been a part of our work since 2019, we are ready to level it up by reaching more people and offering more services to the restaurants we support. Your support will help us do that. Thank you!