CLEVELAND — Margaret Mitchell, the president and CEO of the YWCA of Greater Cleveland, has been fighting to eliminate racism, give hope to the homeless and empower women making a difference in the Northeast Ohio community—but soon, she'll be moving into the national spotlight.
After leading the YWCA of Greater Cleveland for the past decade and growing her staff from 35 with a $2.7 million budget to a team of 120 with a $7.9 million budget, Mitchell will soon take over as the CEO of YWCA USA.
"It feels amazing, wonderful, a little nerve-racking, but very exciting," Mitchell said.
In addition to her hard work, Mitchell credits her team and their commitment to putting in the work that has made the YWCA of Greater Cleveland so successful.
"Our work with individuals that find themselves experiencing a crisis in homelessness, and stepping in to take on the homeless shelters several years ago, very proud of that," Mitchell said. "And our work in the community around racial equity is something that I'm extremely proud of. But it's nothing that I do alone."
During her time with the YWCA of Greater Cleveland, Mitchell had led the call to declare racism a public health crisis in Cleveland and across Ohio, winning the YWCA USA's Excellence Award for racial justice.
"I'm a race person. I am for my race. The human race. And I think it's critically important that we are looking out for each other and making sure that anybody who is lost, last or least among us, is being able to have opportunities in which everybody is able to thrive," Mitchell said.
In her last month at the YWCA of Greater Cleveland before taking on her role with YWCA USA, Mitchell is planning to advance her work on a national scale.
"I'm really interested in having YWCA USA show up. I think we haven't always shown up nationally. And that's something that I'm very interested in making sure that we do," Mitchell said. nurturing the local associations, supporting them, caring for them, growing them, feeding them so that we're all stronger together and able to be useful in this country at this time."
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
