Devontá
Dickey

Not through better messaging. Not through more polished storytelling. But through genuine proximity: showing up consistently, listening without agenda, and building systems that make it impossible for community voices to be ignored.

I have spent nearly a decade working at the intersection of philanthropy, civic life, and narrative strategy. What that work has taught me is this: the gap between what institutions say and what communities experience is rarely the result of bad intentions. It is the result of bad distance. Foundations, nonprofits, and civic organizations that stay close to the people most affected by their decisions make better decisions. Full stop.

Accountability is not a value statement. It is a system. And communications is not a department. It is the connective tissue between an institution's deepest commitments and the world it is trying to change.

That is the work I am called to do. Not just to tell the story, but to build the infrastructure that makes the story true.

I am a civic strategist, narrative builder, and philanthropic leader working at the intersection of community power and institutional decision-making. My work is grounded in a single conviction: the gap between what institutions say and what communities experience rarely comes from bad intentions. It comes from systems that were never designed to listen.

At Saint Luke's Foundation, a $230 million philanthropic institution anchored in Cleveland's predominantly Black and Brown East Side neighborhoods, I serve as Communications and Marketing Director, leading the organization's public narrative, brand strategy, and institutional positioning. Over the past four years, I have built Lift Every Voice 216, a community intelligence system that embeds resident insight directly into grantmaking and has helped shape more than $32 million in investment decisions.

Prior to Saint Luke's, I led strategic communications and civic engagement at Cleveland VOTES, where I helped develop the Equitable Civic Engagement framework and directed more than $600,000 toward community organizations. Earlier in my career, I managed Cleveland's Undesign the Redline exhibition at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, bringing the history of redlining into public conversation in a city still living with its consequences.

My global perspective was shaped through Qatar Foundation International, which brought me to Doha and Costa Rica alongside a cohort of American and Middle Eastern students to study ocean acidification, water systems, and cross-cultural communication. That immersion in the Arab world sparked an eight-year study of Arabic, a language I continue to develop and speak today. I also studied abroad at the University of Cape Town, where I focused on environmental policy and partnered with local NGOs in South Africa. These experiences deepened how I think about narrative, power, and what community-centered communication looks like across vastly different contexts.

I am a Bill Gates Millennium Scholar, a Posse Foundation Leadership Scholar, a Philanthropy Ohio Emerging Philanthropist of the Year, and a Crain's Cleveland 20 in Their 20s honoree. My writing has appeared in Candid and the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and my work has been recognized by the Black Professionals Association, Engage! Cleveland, and the Cleveland Leadership Center. I am completing my MBA at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.