Evelyn Burnett

 

Vice President of
Economic Development at
Cleveland Neighborhood Progress

 

by Madison Williams, crew 6

 

 

Evelyn Burnett has devoted her career to helping others. She works hard to make sure people live in good housing and can afford their housing even if the community they live in is underserved. She is the Vice President of Economic Opportunity at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress.  She also works with celebrities and athletes to help them work with philanthropy to give their money away for a good cause.

Ms. Burnett received a Masters in public administration but she became interested in her cause by accident. “When people receive their Masters in public administration they usually go to government, but I went into philanthropy,” Burnett said. When she was working in the area of philanthropy, she felt very disconnected from the people.  She wanted to find a way to help her community more directly. She moved to Cleveland Neighborhood Progress because she feels it gives her a more direct connection with the people in the community she serves.

         Ms. Burnett does a lot of research to help to prepare people to live in the best way possible. Cleveland Neighborhood Progress is committed to growing the current community development system into an even more effective, efficient and creative network. Evelyn also would like to travel even more in order to be able to conduct more research on different neighborhood programs. Her job also includes many other responsibilities such as working to give residents safe and affordable financial planning, raising awareness about available services and consumer protections, educate people about best practices, and help connect people to community services.

         Her organization’s biggest project was the community financial centers where people can receive financial advice and shop for financial products regardless of their income, money, or housing.  She also helps people save for retirement for college alongside of helping many different celebrities give to more charities.

         Evelyn Burnett does this work because she cares about improving opportunities in Cleveland. “I hope that in the future lots and lots of people are living in Cleveland and invest in Cleveland and that the things people want or need would be accessible for them to get,” she says. She thinks her dream will become true because this model of economic development was used where she used to live, and that it helped to make a difference. She said it was hard at first, but that eventually they developed a neighborhood where many different shops and resources were available within walking distance of the neighborhood. She is trying to repeat this model in Cleveland.

         Cleveland Neighborhood Progress is challenging people to think about Cleveland’s neighborhoods differently and remind people that Cleveland needs to invest in its neighborhoods.  “In the 70s & 80s people moved out of the city to suburbs which hurt the inner city because cities need people, infrastructure and businesses and without those things then the city crumbles,” she explained. The city would crumble because people and businesses move out and they stop making investments. However, Evelyn thinks this process can be reversed if more people are able buy a home in the city that they want and will enjoy. Then they will be more likely to invest in and care for their neighborhoods. As more people have economic opportunities in the city, more people will move back and neighborhoods will begin to thrive again. She believes that giving more people access to economic opportunities will help to improve the entire city.

           Evelyn Burnett studied a lot to get to where she is today.  She talked to people that she admired and she had to be very confident that she could accomplish the same things. Mainly, she had to perform really well to prove others that she could do the work. Today her hard work is paying off as she is helping to make Cleveland a better place.