Shownotes
If you’ve ever wondered what makes Central Ohio tick—beyond the headlines and rumors—this episode is for you.
We welcome Matthew Martin, Director of Community Research at The Columbus Foundation, for an in-depth look at the Benchmarking Central Ohio 2024 report.
We dig into the strengths, challenges, and unique features that define our rapidly growing region and shed light on how data-driven research is helping shape smarter philanthropy, more effective local policy, and a better quality of life for everyone who calls Central Ohio home.
Matthew walks us through the origins and purpose of the benchmarking report, what sets Columbus apart among its peer cities, and why it’s critical to not just gather data, but also fuel ongoing conversations for positive community change.
Whether you’re interested in regional growth, housing, public health, or the diverse fabric that makes up Central Ohio, get ready for a conversation packed with insights, optimism, and a fresh perspective on how research is powering our region’s future.
If you like this episode, please let us know. We appreciate the feed back, and your support of offset costs of producing the podcast!
Here are 3 key takeaways from the discussion:
- Research-Backed Change: The Columbus Foundation’s benchmarking study isn't just about numbers—it’s a comprehensive review comparing Central Ohio to 22 peer regions, helping community leaders move beyond rumors to real, actionable insights.
- Complex Challenges, Collaborative Solutions: Central Ohio’s growth, diversity, and resilience are matched by persistent challenges—especially in areas like infant mortality, housing, and public health. The data doesn’t give prescriptive answers, but sparks essential community conversations and inspires collaborative solutions across nonprofit, public, and corporate sectors.
- It’s a Community Effort: Philanthropy in Columbus isn’t just about big-dollar donors; it’s about countless individuals making an impact together. The city’s unique strengths—like its youthful population and outstanding libraries—are the result of broad-based civic engagement and informed action.
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Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants.
Copyright 2025 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson
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The views and opinions expressed by the experts interviewed on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. The information provided in these interviews is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals for specific advice or information related to their individual circumstances. The podcast host and producers do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information provided by the experts interviewed. Listener discretion is advised.
Transcripts
We are looking forward our way. Hi, this is Brett. You may have heard that Columbus is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, or you may have read about devastating health issues such as the likelihood of infant death. Well, there are many rumors roaming the Internet. The challenges impacting this region are real, but the strengths we share are prevalent. Today we're going to dive into a report called Benchmarking Central Ohio 2024, which was commissioned by the Columbus foundation to discern who we are, where we are, and the opportunities that lie in front of us. Let's welcome Matthew Martin, Director of Community Research for the Columbus Foundation. Thanks for joining us, Matt.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah. Hi, Brett.
Carol Ventresca [:It's so good to see you again.
Matthew Martin [:It's good to see you, too.
Carol Ventresca [:Matt and I met up a long time ago at the foundation. We keep running into each other.
Matthew Martin [:You've been doing good work in the community for a long time.
Carol Ventresca [:Thank you. Thank you. Well, when the benchmarking study came out and I saw your name on it, I'm like, oh, yeah, this looks kind of interesting. You know, it is. This report really gave me. I think I know the community pretty well because I've been doing all this stuff for so long. Lots of stuff, lots of new information. And so that's why I thought it would be really to our advantage to hear some of the details and some of the assumptions and misconceptions that happen when people only hear rumors.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:So we're going to dive right into this. The report was provided in 2024. You took on that task to disseminate it throughout the community. But there is so much that we want to cover. But before we get into those details, we always like to know the ins and outs of our guests. So tell us about you, about your work and your time at the Columbus Foundation.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, well, thank you. I have been at the Columbus foundation for eight years now, working in the Community Research and Grants Management department. I came to the foundation from the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State. So I'd been in that research world for a bit. I was there for almost a decade studying access to opportunity and, and community geography and what kinds of policies and investments can make places stronger and more inclusive. And so the opportunity to join the foundation really enabled me to take that perspective and lessons learned from studying communities, not just all across the state, but around the country, and enabling that to inform the grant making that we do and the community research and knowledge that we're developing on behalf of our donors and our community partners.
Carol Ventresca [:Well, and I think folks don't Realize that there is a lot of information that has to come together for these reports and how much advantage the city has. Other smaller communities would have, groups like MORPC would have where they could actually see all this information in one space, in one place. And your job was to get it out there.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, and I think that's one of the kind of strengths, blessings, but also challenges here in Columbus is that we are a really research and resource dense community. I mean, as a state capitol, there's obviously a lot of research that's done around policy. As a land grant university home, you know, there are bright minds studying all kinds of topics all the time. We actually take the time in Columbus to study things and research them and try and really understand the root of challenges here. But we have almost an ecosystem of research that is so vast that it actually can become challenging to make sense of it all and to come to the point where we say, okay, so what does all that mean and what do we do about it? If this is a trend or a pattern that we see, what can we do as a city, as a region, in the corporate sector, in the public sector, in the nonprofit sector? So a lot of it actually is kind of parsing through all the noise and pulling out the true meanings and takeaways.
Carol Ventresca [:I think in today's world, folks are seeing only the negative about research and science and where things came from and where they started. And yet we can't take care of issues and problems unless we know what happened and where we are today and what we want to have happen. And then the research helps fill those steps for us to get to that goal. And we're losing that flavor of research.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah. One of my favorite books in my undergrad program at Wright State, in the Urban affairs and Planning program, there was how to Lie with Maps, which was based on an older book called how to Lie with Statistics. And that's now 20 plus years ago. Now, now you can really say that. I mean, we could write a book about how to lie with facts.
Carol Ventresca [:Oh yeah, right.
Matthew Martin [:And so, yeah, there's a lot to kind of cut through these days, but there's so many different dimensions to research. It's really about getting to the bottom of our challenges and our opportunities and figuring out how to leverage them. And you can research by collecting quantitative data and looking at it from multiple angles. You can do interviews and focus groups, but it's really, at the end of the day, it's all collecting information to try and understand what's really going on and what would make a difference because.
Carol Ventresca [:Our assumptions aren't necessarily what's really going on.
Matthew Martin [:Right.
Carol Ventresca [:I always am teasing Brett that I'm the statistics person. I'm always. Every time we do a podcast, his questions are all littered with these numbers that I throw in there. And that's really why I wanted you to come and talk about this benchmarking, because it's not just boring numbers. There's information behind all of this. But I have to give a shout out to. To Brett's wife, Angie, who is on the faculty at Wright State.
Matthew Martin [:Nice.
Carol Ventresca [:So hi to Angie and all of her colleagues who taught you well.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, exactly, exactly. I met my wife there. I met some very dear friends there, and it definitely helped set a trajectory for my life and my career.
Carol Ventresca [:Very cool.
Brett Johnson [:Good university. Yeah, exactly. Although Carol and I have worked with the Columbus foundation for years, she introduced me to the foundation through my work at the nonprofit we both were a part of. There are many in our community who are not familiar with the organization. Can you give us an overview of the foundation's work and how that benchmark study fits into that mission?
Matthew Martin [:Sure, yeah. We're a community foundation that was established in the middle of World War II. And the remarkable thing about that is, while everyone was paying attention to what was happening in Europe and in all the theaters of war, there were at least a handful of civic leaders here in Columbus who were thinking about the future beyond the war and the future here at home in central Ohio, and how to strengthen and improve our own community, even in the midst of trying times around the globe. The first donation to the Columbus foundation was made by Olga Anna Jones, who was a teacher and our city's first councilwoman. She made a $25 gift, and that was the beginning of the Columbus foundation. Fast forward 80 plus years later. We're a $4 billion institution that's granted out as much money as has come in. Basically, we help individuals, families, and corporate donors fulfill their charitable goals, and we support the missions and the work of nonprofit organizations.
Matthew Martin [:But really, the community is the object and the heart and soul behind what we do and who we are. And strengthening and improving the community for the benefit of all is really the heart and soul of the foundation.
Carol Ventresca [:As Brett mentioned, I brought a different flavor of the foundation to our agency because I had worked with the foundation even under the previous director when I was in graduate school. And Jim Luck introduced me to the power of that community foundation. And it has grown enormously even in those years. But when you were saying about the woman who gave the first $25 donation. I realized my grandmother gave the first donation for what is now the Italian cultural center near St. John the Baptist Church in an Italian village. And all of a sudden, that just hit me of how she showed me what her one little check could do. And the only reason she really was the first person who donated was because the pastor was visiting her and happened to mention that I was helping him get money.
Carol Ventresca [:So she wrote him out a check. What a. Now, that whole story now means a whole different thing for me. So thank you. Thank you for that.
Matthew Martin [:There, you know, there are families in Columbus whose names, you know, you would recognize from the names of buildings and really generous examples of philanthropy. But there are far more families and individuals who are giving much more modest amounts. But all of that adds up to a big impact annually and over time. And there wouldn't be a community foundation with only a handful of donors. It's truly a community project.
Carol Ventresca [:September. We're not posting this podcast right away. We're actually taping it in September. And September is Philanthropy Month, so we celebrated last week with the folks at the Columbus Foundation. And big shout out to all of your colleagues at the foundation because they do a phenomenal job.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, it's a really incredible team.
Carol Ventresca [:It is. Okay, enough of all of my meandering here. This is why we have questions. So this 2024 report is actually the 8th edition of this series going back to 2007. The report measures change and growth in the community. But that's kind of a simplistic phrase in a very complex world. Let's start our conversation on the purpose of the study and how and why it started and sort of the goals you hope to reach.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, so kind of to go back to your question earlier about how work like this fits into the mission of the foundation. We support and commission research to help inform the grant making that we do. It's all part of what we strive for, which is the most effective philanthropy possible. And that community knowledge that's generated through that work certainly helps us make more effective grants. But it's also meant to do that for our donors and our community partners, the nonprofits that we support, so that as a community, we can achieve some alignment and some coordination in our efforts. This benchmarking series is really a key piece of that effort. As you said, it goes back to, really, the Great Recession, and its origin was in really wanting to take stock of where we are as a community. And it holds us up against a couple dozen peer regions.
Matthew Martin [:And that group of peers has changed over time throughout the series. Because as our community, as central Ohio region has grown, the kinds of communities that we think of as peers, that's evolving a little bit, the kinds of communities that we aspire to be like or to be similar to has also changed. But if you think about, we're really wanting to have this regular check in the same way you would go to your dentist every six months or your primary care doc every year just to, you know, see how things are doing. You want to do that as a community. And, you know, going into that, that you might, you might see some of the things that are strengths about our community, but you might also see things in which we would want to grow. And so a lot of it is really trying to identify those things and help inform some of some of our next steps.
Brett Johnson [:Well, the study covers 10 counties around Central Ohio. It's a lot of people, a lot of land. How are the parameters of the research structure to cover such a big area?
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, so it covers the 10 county metropolitan statistical area. And so that's a unit of geography that probably most captures the way our community functions. You know, like.
Brett Johnson [:And that changed since 2000, the beginning, didn't it?
Matthew Martin [:It does change. It does change. Every so often, MSA boundaries get updated to reflect commuting patterns, really. And so, for example, Hocking county was one of the most recent counties added to central Ohio. And that's because people, enough people have started commuting into central Ohio from some of those, what we think of as really outlying counties. And that phenomenon takes place all across the region as regions grow, as job markets continue to spread out throughout multiple county regions. And so it basically takes data at that 10 county MSA, which means a number of things, but it means that, you know, they're the data points in this report represent that entire region, but they don't necessarily reflect, you know, the reality on the ground in each individual census tract, because things vary across that 10 county landscape. You know, it's.
Matthew Martin [:These are all midpoints or averages for the entire region. So while there's a lot of utility in kind of seeing how central Ohio stacks up to Cincinnati and Cleveland and Indianapolis and Nashville and Austin and Charlotte, it's actually also interesting too, when you start looking at some of the indicators and saying, well, but it doesn't feel like that in my county or in my neighborhood.
Carol Ventresca [:My neighborhood, right?
Matthew Martin [:Then you start to peel back some of the layers of the onion and say, well, why do you think that is, what's going on there? If it's not, if it doesn't seem that way in your nook of the region, what must it be like in some of the other places, good or bad, challenging or opportunistic. So I think it also can help us get to some of the disparities that exist here locally.
Carol Ventresca [:So, Matt, when we are discussing this report, you and I, earlier in the year, I asked about the findings and your response surprised me. The study doesn't give recommendations. Everybody thinks a report's only going to tell you what you got to do. Instead, through analyzing the data, it can confirm what we have assumed about our region or dispel those myths about the makeup of a community. But it can highlight our strengths, as you mentioned, while defining challenges and tell us a little bit more about why this is important, that you're not giving us answers.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, I mean, collecting the data is, it isn't everything, but when you look at some of the same indicators, addition after edition, and you kind of are forced to kind of look at it on its face, there's a handful of indicators in this series that unfortunately we have not improved in throughout the series. If you go back and look at kind of small business startups and minority owned businesses and business enterprises, unfortunately if you look at things like infant mortality, these are numbers that in some cases, despite our best efforts, are just that we continue to lag in. I think the value in having to kind of look at the data every so often is that it can kind of cut through our biases, our ability to kind of wish for the best or have wishful thinking. And it forces us to come back to the table and say what are we missing on this? Or for the communities that are doing better than us, what can we learn from them? Because there are places, there are regions in this cohort in this study that are doing much better on some of these things, on things like infant mortality. And I don't think that we need to be afraid of confronting those issues as a community because we have some great initiatives underway that we've started because we realize some of these things. But we also need to be open to learning and to kind of coming back to the drawing board together. And so the recommendations and the what's next really comes out of the community conversations that happen once this report comes out. We had a successful launch of it in the fall last year with the Columbus Metropolitan Club.
Matthew Martin [:They did a two part series where we began to really unpack some of the key takeaways. And I think that's where it becomes a community asset when we can kind of dig in together and start talking about what it's really telling us about our community.
Carol Ventresca [:There are policymakers, administrators, executive directors who are making decisions about utilizing funding or getting funding to take care of an issue, whether it's housing, transportation, infant mortality or whatever. And this study is not going to just tell them what's going on here. But if Austin is doing a better job on infant mortality, what are they doing that better? Utilizes the resources. We use a lot of resources in this town and it does not all come to a positive end. It doesn't fix the problem. And so, yeah, if we can come up with information that leads us on a better path, that's why this research is so important.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah. And I almost liken it to the commitment to improvement that you might see or hear about with Coach Day and the Buckeyes, where no matter if there was a win or a loss on Saturday, they're going to go watch the film.
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Matthew Martin [:And even if we won 70 to nothing, we're going to be looking for things that we can do better next time. So I think that that's kind of the mentality that we can have as a community as well. There's a lot to celebrate in central Ohio. I've been participating throughout this year in Leadership Ohio, and it's taken me around the state to learn from other communities. Many places I know and love, like the Dayton area, but other parts of the state that I wasn't as familiar with. And in so many ways you see, I mean, you see the hard working grit that is Ohio, but you also see that what's going on here in Columbus and in central Ohio, things that we feel like are normal to us aren't so normal throughout the rest of the state. And there's a lot, obviously for us to make sure we're not taking for granted here in terms of the growth and the economic development and the jobs. Those are things that we can't take for granted.
Matthew Martin [:Even in all of that, though, even in our growth. And the great headlines about being named first recently in economic development at a national level, that's great. But who's being left out of that? Who's not getting to participate in this growth?
Carol Ventresca [:It's not going to last very long if everybody's not participating.
Matthew Martin [:Right, right. And do we want to be the kind of community that is growing but only 70% of the people get to really benefit from that growth? Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:The data is giving us a snapshot of the makeup of our community, like how old we are, where we live, homeownership or rent, race native or foreign Born where we work. Can you talk a little bit about who we are and what, if anything, makes us unique?
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, yeah. When you look at the things that we're sort of top of the heap in, so to speak, within this cohort, at least, even though from a demographic standpoint, we're also aging at a higher rate than maybe we used to among these regions, we're one of the younger regions. I think that's owing to obviously our strong university presence, and that's not even only Ohio State, but it being the scale that it is, being a state capital, obviously is a big part of that and just our mix of industry. So I think there's a lot of things that keep young people coming to central Ohio. And I think one of the things we're getting better at is, is keeping them here, creating the kinds of opportunities that make them wanna stay and be part of what's happening here. We have one of the best library systems in the country, library visits per capita. We're second in the nation in that, and we have a relatively low unemployment rate compared to a lot of places. What's interesting, though, about the things, just looking at rankings, for example, we're in the top five in the gender pay equity indicator, but it's still like 81 cents or 84 cents on the dollar.
Matthew Martin [:So when we're looking at these strengths, if you will, it's important not just to look at the ranking, which we all know that in Columbus we can get really obsessed with rankings, especially in the fall.
Carol Ventresca [:Right, exactly. But we're not number one. We don't.
Matthew Martin [:But actually, what's the objective? What's the objective here? Well, pay equity would be that everybody gets paid what they're worth and equitably compensated for, like work. Right. That's what we're aiming for. We're aiming for 100 cents on the dollar.
Brett Johnson [:One to one. Yeah.
Matthew Martin [:Right. So celebrating that we're in the top five is kind of tone deaf if we're still in a place where we don't really want to be as a community. So there's things like that. One of the more gender inclusive communities in the Midwest and in this cohort, a volunteer rate that exceeds most of the cohort as well, although that doesn't seem to translate in charitable giving as strongly. And so that's even something that we're taking a harder look at as an institution. And what does that mean? What does that one data point really reflect? And what kinds of things can we do? Which, I mean, this is part of our mission all the time is to think about how to inspire greater generosity in the community. We do that obviously through things like the big give and the big table where you're inviting everyone in the community to, to participate in it. But yeah, so those are some of our strengths.
Matthew Martin [:We're in the bottom five in a handful of public health measures and have been there for a while. So things like overdose deaths and adult diabetes rates and the infant mortality rate that I mentioned earlier, those types of things are really concerning because on some of those, it's not like we're caught off guard. We've been paying attention to some of those things and working on them, and yet still aren't seeing the kind of progress that we would want to as a community. Some of that speaks to the way that these things are tied into bigger phenomenon in our community. And, and actually that's a big part of this report and its comprehensive nature and having 55 indicators is that it's meant to kind of help us see the big picture of the community and not just focus on one or two things. We've done really well in job growth as a region over the last couple decades, but we really took our eye off the ball on housing. And now you see that we've underbuilt for years and, and that's something that we need to pay more attention to. But while we're paying attention to housing, it doesn't mean that we can take our eye off of infant mortality or assume that things will be fine over there in the early childcare space if we just keep building houses.
Matthew Martin [:You know, you've got to work on all these things simultaneously and lean in together as a community.
Brett Johnson [:And some of the sins can be interlocking as well too. One can affect the other. It's a domino effect. If you fix this, then it can of goes into that, goes into that, goes into that.
Matthew Martin [:That's right.
Brett Johnson [:And maybe it's not necessarily figuring out what is the first domino to fall, but any of them can help with the wave.
Carol Ventresca [:When you're taking the statistics on a 10 county basis or conglomerate, are these issues looked at differently by each county? I mean, it's. I know, I know the report has to be at that 10 county area, but there are some entities within that 10 county area that could probably use specific information and the synthesis of that. All that data for just their particular region. For instance, Madison county looking at infant mortality is tremendously different than Franklin county looking at infant mortality. So is that information available to other. To the entities who are in need.
Matthew Martin [:Of It So this study doesn't necessarily break down all these data points at a sub county level, but our, our friends at the Mid Ohio Regional Planning Commission do a really good job of breaking down quite a few of these at a county and municipal level. I mean their membership is made up of communities from all across, not only that 10 county region, but even a 15 county region. And so they are pretty consistently pulling some of these data for their member communities. And there are other partners like them in the region that help disaggregate. What's interesting is that sometimes you find that there are certain challenges that are sticky in rural areas and urban areas alike.
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Matthew Martin [:So something that we've been paying attention to since the beginning of the pandemic, like a lot of folks have, is digital skills and access to devices and affordable high speed Internet. And some of those challenges are actually pretty consistent across rural and urban areas for different reasons. In rural areas it's more that the technology just doesn't reach some places. In urban areas it may be that there's only one or two providers and so there's essentially a monopoly and there's nothing really affordable and there aren't updates being made to the grid. But the result is the same for households and their efforts to access, you know, educational opportunities, healthcare, jobs, things like that.
Carol Ventresca [:Well, I just keep thinking my county, Delaware county is such a strange conglomerate of things going on because of that whole Polaris Parkway build that changed the flavor of what had been a very rural county other than the city of Delaware. It was just small towns and farmland. And then suddenly the farmers started selling land across the southern part of the county. So even within a county, this data would be really interesting broken down. But as you said, our friends at Morpsey do a great job of doing that. So wonderful.
Matthew Martin [:They do. And they're obviously really locked arms with partners in and around Licking county right now with all the growth that's happening there and is expected to happen there. And even at the county level there are partners coming together to try and develop a plan and a path forward. It's interesting you touch on the urban, rural, you know, a part of the region that once felt, not that long ago felt really rural, you know, is now seeing this development.
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Matthew Martin [:And one of the things that pops up in this study is our use of land and our loss of agricultural land. And as it turns out, you know, if you think about what are the ways to preserve some of our small towns, some of that, some of those rural areas and the agricultural or pastoral feel in A lot of our community, it's. The answer is density in the cities, density in the metropolitan area, because that's what's going to take development pressure off of those rural areas. And if we're using the infrastructure we already have and making sure we're not underutilizing it, then we're kind of working on multiple things at once. I don't know that many people understand how much of our growth, our population growth in recent years is owing to our immigration from refugees. But not just refugees, and not from one particular part of the world and not from one particular economic status. We actually have a really remarkably diverse international community that in this cohort at least, it's one of the most diverse and it's one of the most recently arrived communities proportionately. But it makes up 70% of our population grows.
Brett Johnson [:And I've heard recent study from a gentleman from Jewish Family Services talking about this on another podcast that the. Those refugees, those immigrants have a high percentage of success in regards to starting a business, actually adding to the community versus what our perception of them being a drain. They're not.
Matthew Martin [:Right. They're creating.
Brett Johnson [:They've actually. They're adding to our community in a much bigger way than we probably ever thought they could.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah. Yeah. And even, like, there are neighborhoods that have experienced some economic revival. Like Northland is a great example.
Carol Ventresca [:Absolutely.
Matthew Martin [:They've brought that community back to life. And in the absence of a real plan or strategy from the city or the county even.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. And sometimes you just need to lay off of it and let it happen organically.
Matthew Martin [:Create fertile soil. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:Columbus has always been a huge hub of immigration, going back to the Germans and Irish and then the Italians in the early 1900s.
Matthew Martin [:But we're back to actually the last time that immigrants and refugees made up a proportion of Franklin county, at least that they do now, was like the 1890s. But it's also from many more places around the world than it was at that time.
Carol Ventresca [:Right. Okay. Well, we need to.
Brett Johnson [:We'll add that section. Just what you said. That's perfect. That's a nice drop. You want to go right into the benchmark compared to Central Iowa to 22 other cities.
Carol Ventresca [:I can. Do you need to ask a question? I don't.
Brett Johnson [:I think I can. When he started talking. We'll just add that because you had just talked about cities and that sort of thing adds right to that.
Carol Ventresca [:Okay.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:I don't think there's a question that has to be had before that. So I love it.
Carol Ventresca [:Is that okay?
Matthew Martin [:Yeah. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:I want to just make sure that we've got all the. If you did all the work to put your notes together.
Brett Johnson [:Right. No, it's a great addition, but I can splice that right in there and then we can go right to that question.
Carol Ventresca [:Okay.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:So, Matt, you've mentioned the word cohort a couple of times, and that's probably one thing. We should make clear that this benchmark is really a comparison of central Ohio to 22 other city SMSAs across the country. How do we compare with these groups and which areas should we concentrate on in order to maximize our resources and potential?
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, that's great. I mean, it's a good place to start, really. So the cohort is. There are some midwest peers that we would all be familiar with, like our sister cities here in Ohio, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, even Chicago, which doesn't seem like a fair comparison because they're much larger. But it's a Midwest. It's a large Midwest region from which we can obviously learn some things, but it's also got some regions from other parts of the country. So southern cities like Nashville, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Southwest, including Austin, and, you know, some. Some west coast, Sacramento.
Matthew Martin [:Some of these are not necessarily regions we would think of really as peers, but there's. There's something in each one of them that we can learn from. You know, there's a handful of ones that are looked to right now, I think, in. In a lot of different circles as our nearest peers, like, like Austin, Nashville, Indy, and Charlotte, which incidentally just passed us to become the 14th largest city in America.
Carol Ventresca [:Charlotte did.
Matthew Martin [:Charlotte did. Which was something that I think you could see coming in some of the most recent census data.
Carol Ventresca [:We've been 15 for a long time, and we only popped up to 14 recently.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah. And it's not something that I think we one, have a ton of control over or two really matters all that much. So again, that's at the city level.
Brett Johnson [:It's kind of bragging rights kind of feel to it.
Matthew Martin [:It is.
Carol Ventresca [:It's those three last people who moved to Charlotte probably from Ohio.
Matthew Martin [:And it's not because we're not growing. I mean, we added 30,000 people in. In a time where they added 60 plus thousand. And that's emblematic of the south anyways. I mean, southern and southwestern cities are just growing faster than a lot of Midwest cities. We're one of the fastest growing metros in the Midwest. And I actually think that becoming preoccupied with growth itself can at times do us a disservice, because if we were growing faster right now, that would just be more housing units that we're falling behind, just as an example. So we're at this pace of growth right now that keeps attracting investment and some good attention and some jobs, but at a rate that if we continue to put our minds to it and move forward with a regional strategy around housing, it's actually more reasonable to think that we can build for our growth at a 2% rate than at, say, an 8% rate, which is what Austin grew at.
Brett Johnson [:Well, and your point of the Charlotte overtaking us and that sort of thing. So, okay, that begs the question, number one or two questions one, were they able to handle that growth?
Matthew Martin [:I think that remains to be seen.
Brett Johnson [:Right?
Matthew Martin [:Yeah.
Brett Johnson [:And if they did, how did they do it? And what can we learn from that? And probably the answers are what we just talked about. They figured out the housing problem, if they had one, or how did they do it?
Matthew Martin [:Well, this housing thing is not unique to central Ohio. The regional regions around the country are facing that, and it's a mixed bag across the board as to how they're doing. A lot of it comes back to state policy. And that's actually something that when you're looking through this benchmarking report, you kind of need to have one eye on state politics or state policy around certain things, because that's what determines what's possible in some of these regions is what's going on in their state house. So there's some really interesting things happening, for example, in Minneapolis with their housing, but a lot of it is enabled through both the combination of what's happening at the local level and the state level. Childcare is a big one. Early childcare really comes back to state policy a lot of times, and where we could do better as a region. And that speaks to how we can lock arms with other regions around Ohio and say we're all struggling with this issue and it would serve all of us and not just large regions.
Matthew Martin [:I'm from the Mansfield area. There's Mansfields and Springfields and Daytons and everything in between that would benefit from, you know, growth and improvement in education, in early child care, and that would trickle to workforce and, you know, labor force participation rates and things like that. So when you see things across this 22 region cohort that are really different, one of the questions that you can ask is, well, what's happening in Tennessee or North Carolina?
Carol Ventresca [:You know, yeah, when you're looking at those 22 other cities, you're collecting data at the SMSA level at whatever number.
Matthew Martin [:Of counties makes up their MSA, it's not always 10 counties, but yeah, that metropolitan statistical area.
Carol Ventresca [:So the benchmark study can really look at just Ohio cities with some comparisons and really come up with the overall issues so that at the state level, policy can come into play.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, I mean, there's only the two, Cleveland and Cincinnati here in Ohio within this cohort. But you know, MSA level data for some of the other places around the state also pretty easy to take a look at on some of these indicators at least. And yeah, I think that's part of what a next step is from a report like this.
Brett Johnson [:The series of research studies has tremendous potential to support the work of local governments, which we just kind of touched upon there, nonprofits, economic development drivers and more. Can you share any examples of this research data and information being utilized to create that needed change that they've taken what they've seen, again, without giving any answers to them, but saying, okay, here it is.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, so I think the first point is that calling out each of the sectors is really important because no one sector can really take on every aspect, every implication, if you will, from this report. So we really need to lean in together and leverage each of the, the sectors. And I think what we at the Columbus foundation often try to help everyone remember is that the nonprofit sector plays a really important role in that work. We call it the heart work of our community. But there's really important things happening all across the nonprofit sector that touch on so many different aspects of our community. But the nonprofit sector and philanthropy can't do it all. So we need a strong public sector and we need a strong engaged corporate sector. So all that's really important for having takeaways.
Matthew Martin [:And you do see, I mean, it's a little early maybe to assess what is being done in light of this particular report, but given that it's now a long standing series, you know, we can, I think we can point to things that our community is doing in the housing world, in the transportation world. Things like link us, you know, are. That's a great example of, you know, one of the things that we are constantly highest in, in this benchmarking series is reliance on single occupancy vehicles, for example, and the percentage of our region that uses transit is lower than a lot of the other regions. And that doesn't just come back to, you know, the what surface is touching the ground on our transit lines, whether it's steel or rubber. It really comes down to where does it go? Does it go where you need to go? Does it come as often as you need it to come. And does it come as late as you need it to come or as early as you need it to come? And those are things that Coda, in partnership with others in the region, have really been tackling. And that's what even voters went to the polls last fall to to support, which with the bus rapid transit program. So I think there are things like that, certainly, again with housing.
Matthew Martin [:But I do think that we're going to keep coming back to some of these things, some of these health things, and having to really face them and lock arms because they're not maybe so simple. And it takes all the sectors and it takes thinking about our community in a really comprehensive way and not just in kind of an episodic or isolated way.
Carol Ventresca [:The Linked US program is just when that really it becomes reality is going to be a huge change for many people who need to get from point A to point B to work. I mean, it's not just adding bus lines. There's a lot going on. But the other.
Brett Johnson [:And it added the recreational dimension as well, too.
Carol Ventresca [:Exactly.
Brett Johnson [:Well, and small business soften the blow. That's only one thing, Right?
Matthew Martin [:Absolutely. And that's actually what makes Link us. There's something in that for everyone because of that.
Carol Ventresca [:Right, Right.
Brett Johnson [:Exactly.
Carol Ventresca [:Right. But the other thing too, that Columbus City Council's the whole new zoning ordinances that have been changed. You can't fix housing if developers can't.
Brett Johnson [:Build or build like it's in the 1950s.
Carol Ventresca [:Right, exactly.
Brett Johnson [:You just can't.
Matthew Martin [:The city of Columbus is setting a really good example by going and addressing this and updating the zoning code so that we can build for the city that we are and are becoming so much of. What they did in phase one of that was to just enable us to build more along our densest corridors in a way that just makes so much sense, leveraging what we've already built, leveraging in some cases, infrastructure that's been underutilized for a long time. As you know, some of the urban core neighborhoods did experience population decline, you know, in the last, you know, say, three, four, five decades. Those neighborhoods, as many are in Columbus, are growing as well and seeing some population growth. So we've got, you know, assets that we can leverage more as a community to tackle our growth challenges.
Carol Ventresca [:This is always an incredible opportunity to hear about information and resources available in our community. And thank you so much for coming to see us. I love talking about the foundation over and above everything else, but it's really important for us to not Just hear about this. But to know there are plans out there, things that are educating us about the needs of our community based on the facts that are available, and that's important. We always give our guests the last word about what they think the audience should know at the end of the podcast. Any additional information that you'd like to provide. And also, we're kind of wondering about, like, what's the next steps? What are the future steps for the benchmark? And it's the next study scheduled.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah. So I think something I'm really. I've really become passionate about with as it relates to research in our community is this idea that, you know, you learn. You learn things from each report and study that come out, you know, and it feels like there's one that comes out at least every few weeks. You know, there's a new. A new study finds xyz. Right. And we're.
Matthew Martin [:I think we're pretty used to it being positive things, but occasionally things come out, we're like, ooh, that hurts. We're going to have to pay more.
Carol Ventresca [:Attention to that, like falling from 14 to 15.
Matthew Martin [:Thinking more like our air quality and those types of things. When we see some, we've seen some kind of negative studies on that, and we need to obviously pay attention to that. Some of that's outside of our control, but there are obviously things we need to be doing on that front. But we have started in the last few years to put together kind of a year in research in review, kind of piece or two, because these studies come and go in the news cycle and we can tend to forget about them. And there's no real place where you can kind of go back and review the body of research, if you will. What might all these disparate studies and reports and plans be telling us in the aggregate? And so we've really, again, as part of that mission of generating community knowledge that can serve and support the most effective philanthropy possible, we've taken up the challenge of trying to pull all that together and to pull out the insights. And so in addition to reports like this one really pointing to, here's what you might have missed this year. Here's what.
Matthew Martin [:You may have seen a headline on this, but here's how that fits into and contributes to this broader landscape of research. And as you said earlier, Brett, there's things that are related and might an improvement in this area might make for an improvement in that. So if we're creating more trails, we might be contributing to a reduction in that diabetes rate. So if we're seeing things in research that maybe seemingly are independent or separate. Maybe there are some ties and some connections. So, yeah, we try to pay attention to. It's impossible to kind of keep tabs on everything, but we try and kind of make sense of all that information that we can.
Carol Ventresca [:So is that something then, that the foundation distributes?
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, we've been publishing it on a LinkedIn newsletter called Meeting the Moment the last couple years. That is something that we staff contribute to. So you'll see pieces on education, on growth, on the arts, and it's really pulling on expertise across the staff. And, you know, it's meant to. That title is really meant as so much of our grantmaking is to really help us as a community meet the moment, meet these times, the challenges that we face in this season that we're in. And so, yeah, so that's a great resource. What I would say as far as what's next for this series is you can only update this study so often because 55 indicators, they don't all get updated annually or on the same cycle. So you gotta give it a couple years, usually between each edition, to where there's updated data for the whole.
Matthew Martin [:The whole data set. So we are kind of beginning to plan for the next update, 2027. As you mentioned earlier, the series starting in 2007 would be the 20th anniversary. So we're kind of thinking of that as a way to kind of lift up the series as a whole and its value, but also the next set of updates. And that one will have some of the first, what we hope will be kind of post pandemic. I mean, what was unique about this particular study is that the last one came out in 2019, right before the pandemic. And so this one coming out in 2024 with really data from 2023. 2024 was kind of the how are we doing coming out of COVID addition, I think the next one is going to give further view to that along with changes that are happening as a result of federal and state policy and funding cuts and things like that.
Matthew Martin [:So it'll be interesting, for example, to see with things like our library system, if we're seeing the same kind of usage and access that we've, I think, enjoyed here for some time, see how other regions are dealing with some of those same challenges and cuts. So that next one's going to have its own unique value. So that's kind of what we're thinking, and we're always thinking about how to engage the community in that dialogue as well, and so what kind of. Maybe some of your past guests even. But where is the expertise in our community and how can we lean on that for insight about what some of this data is telling us? So we're always looking for those types of opportunities as well.
Carol Ventresca [:Sounds to me like a PhD dissertation in the making.
Matthew Martin [:The last thing I would mention is we just announced at our annual meeting earlier in September the launch of a couple new initiatives. One is the center for Change Management, which is really an expansion of our efforts to build capacity within the nonprofit sector and helping the sector think through some of the current fundraising challenges, for sure, but also, you know, changes in technology, how to make sense of and leverage AI appropriately, you know, when things like mergers and acquisitions make sense, how to do that? Well, how to do that in a way that honors the past of organizations that might be sunsetting or being absorbed, but also, you know, doing it in a way that carries forward the mission and the kind of the heart of those services and just thinking about how to help organizations confront even unique challenges around space. There are organizations that aren't necessarily emerging, but they're becoming roommates. And so how can you do that effectively to help them save money but also stay mission oriented and aligned? So that center is oriented around assisting with all of those considerations. And then we launched a second iteration of an emergency response fund that we had initially launched back at the beginning of the pandemic. This one is really oriented around helping organizations face the funding climate that we're in now with federal and state cuts to things like SNAP and other public benefits and other sources of funding that are really important resources for the sector that they're not sure they can count on anymore. So looking forward to launching that and doing some hopefully strategic grant making in that space as well.
Carol Ventresca [:Audience, don't forget, we will have all of this information, all the resources listed on the podcast Show Notes when we post the podcast, and it's going to include links to the actual report itself and all of the other items that Matt has mentioned. So thank you so much for all of this wonderful information. We really appreciate your time and expertise coming in to see us today.
Matthew Martin [:Yeah, thank you, Carol and Brett, it was great to be here with you.
Brett Johnson [:Many thanks to our expert guest, Matthew Martin, Director of Community Research for the Columbus foundation, for joining us today. Listeners, thank you for joining us as well too. You're going to find the contact information and resources we discussed in the podcast Show Notes and on our website@lookingforwardarway.com and we are looking forward to hearing your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes.
