Holley Fowler Martens serves as a trustee and administrator for The Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation. A licensed independent social worker, she integrates her social work background in her role as foundation administrator, bringing a unique perspective to the grant making process. As a Treu-Mart Fellow (2009) with the Mandel Center of Non-Profit Management, the networking relationships she acquired with her peers have added insight in her position while determining funding requests. She is one of the co-founders of a local group of small-staffed foundations that is trying to increase the leverage in funding that small foundations have in the Cleveland area. By creating opportunities for open dialogues and establishing trust between other funders, this forum allows small-staffed foundations to share their successes and challenges, helping in streamlining their processes and reducing the redundancy of efforts.
Upon graduating from ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences in 2007, Holley was employed by Shaker Heights Youth Center and placed in Student Assistance at Shaker Heights Middle School. There she worked with students, families, and school staff on student academic success and school affiliation. She created partnerships with prevention providers and coalitions in NE Ohio while organizing community engagement programs and projects pertaining to student social and emotional health. She also facilitated groups focusing on social, therapeutic, leadership and violence prevention utilizing evidence – based curriculum.
Community involvement has always been a priority of Holley’s. Her undergraduate degree in psychology from DePaul University (1990) aided her in working with several youth-serving organizations, ranging from a half-way house for teens in San Diego to designing an alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention program for Cleveland area middle schoolers. The resiliency witnessed, in both volunteer and work experience, in many of these adolescents invigorates Holley; and provides hope while knowing the steep incline and hurdles many of these victimized youth have to reach normal functioning adulthood.
Holley and her husband Rob have lived in the Cleveland area since 2001, and have three children, Alycia, Charlie and Claire.