Greater Cincinnati Foundation
RiskVersity Marketing
Greater Cincinnati Foundation
Background
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation operates by its mission of ‘connecting people
with purpose.’ The organization serves an eight-county region across Ohio, Kentucky, and
Indiana. For more than 55 years, the Greater Cincinnati Foundation has been cultivating
positive change in the community by providing grants, leadership opportunities, and
fundraising opportunities for local organizations focused on advancing the Greater Cincinnati
community.
Overview
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF) helps to connect resources like charitable
gifts and donor advised funds to local organizations that address community need. The
organization continues to grow and expand its services. GCF, a 501(c)(3) organization, faces
operational risks as well as exposure to risks connected to fundraising, charitable giving, and
the rules and regulations that come with nonprofit status.
The Challenge
Before partnering with RiskVersity, the Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF)
initiated an organization-wide effort to proactively identify and assess its operational risks. Will
Woodward, Chief Financial Offer at GCF, led the effort by creating an internal risk assessment
framework and forming a cross-functional team to serve as a dedicated risk management
committee. The risk committee self-identified areas of the organization’s operations that
presented vulnerabilities, but the committee recognized that their own evaluation needed to
be verified by a professional outside of their organization. Having been referred to RiskVersity
via trusted connections at the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, Woodward contacted
RiskVersity for guidance.
Why RiskVersity
RiskVersity’s reputation as a trusted resource for risk-assessment and risk-
management services set the path to a partnership with the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.
RiskVersity’s ability to efficiently and comprehensively create risk profiles, make
recommendations for action, and prioritize needs made them a great partner for GCF.
The Solution
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation welcomed RiskVersity to their newly formed
risk committee with the goal of providing a professional and expert assessment of the risk
framework they created. RiskVersity examined the overall enterprise risk at GCF, ultimately
helping to identify and address specific areas of weakness in the risk framework. RiskVersity
presented these findings and offered education and guidance on how to think about risk within
the organization to further mitigate exposures. This initial partnership proved worthwhile for
both organizations and led to further exploration of GCF’s operations, including:
• Insurance Review
• Compliance with best practices and local governance
• RFP Process and Management
• Contract Review
• Cybersecurity & NIST Framework development
RiskVersity’s Risk Register demonstrated to GCF that although risk can never be eliminated, it
can be proactively and purposefully mitigated by continuous evaluation and honest reflection.
“RiskVersity has proved to be a great partner on all-things risk. We started out our
partnership with one objective, but our relationship has grown to include their team as part
of our ongoing committee to address risk in our organization. RiskVersity has a great team of
people, and they can tackle anything related to risk.”
Will Woodward, Chief Financial Officer, Greater Cincinnati Foundation
The Impact
The initial involvement of RiskVersity in GCF’s internal risk committee created a
model for incorporating RiskVersity into other areas of operations. RiskVersity continues to
serve GCF in an ongoing manner through other committees, including Human Resources and IT.
By becoming an active and valuable resource for GCF, RiskVersity has been welcomed as an
extension of the organization and its go-to resource for risk management services.