Good morning, Northwest Ohio.

There is something about a fireworks show that makes the year slow down for a minute.

Maybe it is the dark sky. Maybe it is the pause before the next burst of light. Maybe it is the fact that, for a few minutes, everyone is looking in the same direction.

Every year around this time, I find myself doing a little inventory. Where are we? What has changed? What are we building? Who helped make the current moment possible?

The older I get, the more I realize progress only means something when you remember the people who helped clear the path. Careers, companies, communities, and institutions are rarely built by one person in one season. They are built through decades of decisions, quiet consistency, and leaders who cared enough to leave something stronger than they found it.

This week’s Toledo Money carries that theme.

We are writing about the Greater Toledo Community Foundation naming a new CFO, a role that has gone unfilled for more than 28 years because Kim Cryan held it with the kind of steadiness that institutions depend on. That kind of tenure says something. It says something about trust, continuity, and the responsibility that comes with stewarding community capital.

We are also writing about Octiv, a new startup founded by two University of Toledo graduates who saw a problem hiding in plain sight. Two groups of people. One shared pain point. One solution being built right here in the region.

So why put these two stories together?

Because legacy and momentum belong in the same conversation.

Toledo Money started as an idea, a market gap, and a belief that Northwest Ohio deserved more business intelligence about the people, deals, and decisions shaping the region. When we see young founders trying to build, solve, and take their shot here, we feel a responsibility to pay attention. More than that, we feel a responsibility to pay it forward.

The people before us created the opportunity. The people building now decide what happens next. Never forget where you came from. And never miss the chance to help someone else get started.

Sarah Ronau, Director of Marketing & Communications at the Greater Toledo Community Foundation.

A seasoned marketing and communications leader, Sarah is passionate about building stronger communities through meaningful storytelling. She leads with compassion, curiosity, and a genuine commitment to connecting people with the organizations and causes making a difference across our region.

Thank you, Sarah, for everything you do to strengthen Northwest Ohio, and thank you for your support of the Toledo Money publication.

Owens Corning | $OC ( ▲ 2.06% )

Dana Incorporated | $DAN ( ▲ 3.17% )

The Andersons | $ANDE ( ▼ 1.47% )

Owens Illinois | $OI ( ▼ 2.31% )

Welltower Inc. | $WELL ( ▼ 0.76% )

Marathon Petroleum Corporation | $MPC ( ▲ 0.93% )

First Solar | $FSLR ( ▲ 1.87% )

Some roles are hires. Others are handoffs.

Greater Toledo Community Foundation’s CFO transition falls into the second category.

After 28 years of service from Kim Cryan, the Foundation has named Jamie Hunter as its next Chief Financial Officer. It may just read as an executive announcement. Underneath it is a much bigger story about trust, stewardship, and the quiet financial infrastructure helping shape Northwest Ohio.

Community foundations are easy to under appreciate because much of their work happens behind the scenes. The grants get announced. The buildings get renovated. The scholarships get awarded. The nonprofit programs get funded. The donor names, fund structures, investment policies, and long-term planning often stay out of view.

That is the point.

At their best, community foundations turn private generosity into permanent civic capacity. They give families, businesses, advisors, nonprofits, and community leaders a trusted place to organize charitable capital around both immediate needs and long-term priorities.

In larger metros, these institutions often become some of the most important civic balance sheets in town. The Cleveland Foundation describes itself as the community’s trust and a collective savings account dedicated to making Greater Cleveland better. The Columbus Foundation positions itself as a trusted philanthropic advisor to more than 3,000 individuals, families, and businesses.

Toledo has its own version of that model.

Greater Toledo Community Foundation was founded in 1973 and now manages more than $560 million in assets across more than 1,000 funds. Since its founding, it has granted more than $370 million into education, health, arts, social services, and other community needs throughout the region.

Those numbers matter. The Foundation is a platform where donor intent, family legacy, nonprofit funding, investment discipline, and regional priorities meet.

The 2025 audited financials make that clear.

GTCF reported $45M in contributions and grants received in 2025. That is one year. It reported $47.7M in grants to charities and other nonprofit institutions. Total expenses were $54.3M.

Said more plainly: nearly 88 cents of every expense dollar went directly to grants for charities and other nonprofits.

Management and general expenses were $2.1M, or less than 4% of total expenses.

For an organization managing a complex network of donor-restricted funds, supporting organizations, private foundations, and long-term charitable capital, that is a ratio worth noticing. The Foundation’s audit tells a simple story: this is a pass-through engine with discipline. Money comes in with purpose. Money moves out with purpose. The operating structure stays lean.

That is why the CFO role matters.

Hunter is not walking into a normal finance seat. He is stepping into one of Northwest Ohio’s more important stewardship positions.

The Foundation’s consolidated financial statements include six supporting organizations, three private foundations, and two donor-directed pooled funds. GTCF performs accounting and administrative functions for those entities and handles the structure behind a wide range of charitable vehicles. In practical terms, this is a financial operating system for regional philanthropy.

That system requires judgment.

Hunter brings a background that fits the assignment. Before moving into community foundation leadership, he spent 11 years as an investment banker with J.P. Morgan & Co., including time as a Managing Director in New York, and later held senior roles with Bank of America. He also earned an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

That résumé matters here because the work is bigger than clean books.

GTCF manages donor intent. It oversees investment strategy. It works with advisors. It supports nonprofits. It handles complex charitable assets. It administers funds that may need to serve the community for generations. That kind of work needs financial rigor, institutional discipline, and the ability to think beyond a single fiscal year.

Hunter’s more recent experience may be even more relevant. He most recently served as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Operations at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, where GTCF noted that he strengthened the investment approach and helped launch an impact investing program.

That is an important detail.

Across the country, community foundations are being asked to do more than distribute annual grants. They are being asked to help communities think through harder, longer-term issues: housing, childcare, nonprofit sustainability, neighborhood investment, workforce, education, health, and access to capital.

Traditional grantmaking still matters. It always will. The next frontier is whether philanthropic capital can become more flexible, more strategic, and more connected to the region’s long-term needs.

GTCF appears to understand that moment. In announcing Hunter’s arrival, the Foundation pointed to the continued evolution of investment strategies, including mission-related investments, and more sophisticated giving vehicles for donors, nonprofits, and the community.

Northwest Ohio talks often about growth. We talk about keeping talent, supporting entrepreneurs, strengthening neighborhoods, improving quality of life, and building the kind of region where families and companies want to invest. Those conversations usually focus on government, business, universities, and economic development groups.

They should also include philanthropic infrastructure.

A healthy region needs trusted institutions that can hold capital patiently. It needs organizations that understand both donor intent and community need. It needs vehicles that allow a family’s charitable priorities to outlive a single check, a single campaign, or a single generation.

Donors can create funds without building a private foundation from scratch. Advisors can help clients solve charitable planning needs with local expertise. Nonprofits can access grant opportunities across education, health, neighborhood development, natural resources, arts, culture, and social services. Families can turn moments of financial success into lasting regional benefit.

And the community gains something more durable than one-time generosity. It gains capacity.

That is what makes GTCF so important to Northwest Ohio. The Foundation is one of the few institutions built to think in decades while still responding to what the region needs now. It can support immediate nonprofit work while preserving long-term charitable capital. It can connect private wealth to public good without requiring every donor to become an expert in nonprofit operations, grant due diligence, or endowment management.

In a relationship-driven market like Toledo, that matters. Hunter steps into this seat at an interesting time.

The Foundation has a new leadership chapter under President and CEO Kate Sommerfeld. The region is wrestling with familiar challenges and new opportunities. Donors are becoming more sophisticated. Nonprofits are being asked to do more. The need for patient, flexible, locally informed capital is growing.

A CFO transition after nearly three decades of continuity would be notable on its own.

This one carries extra weight because GTCF’s role in the region appears to be expanding. The Foundation is no longer just a place where charitable dollars are held and distributed. It is becoming a more strategic platform for how Northwest Ohio thinks about generosity, legacy, investment, and impact.

Jamie Hunter’s assignment is to help protect that trust while helping the Foundation evolve.

That is no small job.

In a region that cares deeply about legacy, the handoff matters. So does what comes next.

One of the questions we ask ourselves at Toledo Money is simple:

Who's building something?

This week, the answer is two University of Toledo graduates.

Jacob Varner and Jack Surtman recently launched Octiv, a platform designed to simplify one of the more frustrating parts of the local music industry: connecting artists with the venues that want to hire them.

It's a problem hiding in plain sight.

Musicians spend countless hours chasing bookings through text messages, social media, and word-of-mouth referrals. Restaurant owners, breweries, bars, wineries, and event organizers often rely on the same fragmented network to find dependable talent. It works, until it doesn't.

Varner and Surtman saw that inefficiency and decided to build a better solution.

Octiv gives artists a place to showcase their work while allowing venues to discover, compare, and book performers through one centralized platform. Less time coordinating. More time doing what both sides actually want to do, play music and create great experiences.

The University of Toledo has spent more than 150 years developing leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs who continue to shape Northwest Ohio and beyond. Sometimes those graduates leave for larger markets. Sometimes they choose to build something right here.

To Jacob and Jack, congratulations on taking the leap. Building a company is never easy, but every successful business begins with someone willing to solve a real problem.

And to our readers: if you own a restaurant, brewery, winery, event venue, or regularly book live entertainment; or if you know someone who does, take a look at what they're building. Supporting local founders isn't just about downloading an app. It's about helping the next generation of Northwest Ohio entrepreneurs earn their first customers.

That's how startup ecosystems grow.

A new statewide sales report suggests Northwest Ohio is attracting more institutional real estate capital than many people realize.

Commercial real estate rarely grabs headlines until a marquee property changes hands. The quieter story is what happens when you zoom out.

A newly released Ohio Sales Report from Newmark analyzed real estate transactions of $1 million or more through July 6, 2026. At first glance, one statistic immediately stands out: Lucas County led the state in recorded sales volume, totaling approximately $2.61 billion across 354 recorded sales. The City of Toledo also ranked first among Ohio cities, with roughly $2.13 billion in recorded transaction volume. Wood County added another $610 million, helping push the broader Toledo region to more than $3.4 billion in sales activity. Those figures exceeded the report's totals for both Northeast and Southwest Ohio.¹

Before anyone starts printing "Toledo is No. 1" banners, there is an important caveat.

The report counts individual parcel records, meaning a single large acquisition can generate multiple recorded transactions. The authors note that on a unique-sale basis, Franklin County remains the state's largest market. That distinction matters, and it is worth understanding.

Even with that context, the takeaway is difficult to dismiss. Large pools of capital are increasingly flowing through Northwest Ohio.

The report points to significant multifamily, industrial, and portfolio transactions driving much of the activity. That aligns with what we've been covering throughout the year. Industrial development continues to expand along the I-75 corridor. Manufacturing investment remains strong. Logistics operators continue to value the region's geographic advantages. Institutional investors appear willing to place meaningful bets on Northwest Ohio assets.

For years, Toledo has often been viewed as a market that quietly followed larger metros like Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland.

This data suggests a more nuanced picture.

Northwest Ohio may not generate the same volume of headlines, but it continues to generate investment. Much of it comes from sectors with long investment horizons rather than short-term speculation.

That matters because commercial real estate is often one of the clearest leading indicators of economic confidence. Capital tends to move where investors believe jobs, businesses, and demand will follow.

Here are a few headlines we are snacking on

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