Elizabeth Cusma
Elizabeth Cusma is a Co-Founder of Sauna Cleveland, a community-centered mobile sauna business that is currently rebuilding after an accident, and a co-founder of a housing initiative focused on creating innovative pathways to affordable housing funding. Over the past decade, she has built her career around community building, systems change, and supporting vulnerable populations. She began by helping individuals experiencing homelessness find employment opportunities, then transitioned into immigration paralegal work supporting a wide range of immigration cases. She later moved into nonprofit program development supporting immigrants and newcomers, eventually helping lead immigrant integration initiatives at the city and regional level. Her academic background includes a master’s degree in immigration policy, completed in 2014 during a period of significant global displacement challenges, which further shaped her commitment to human-centered policy and advocacy.
Elizabeth has expanded her impact work into emerging technology and regenerative finance through the Web3 ecosystem, where she supports projects focused on building more transparent, equitable, and accessible economic systems. She is passionate about using technology as a tool for social good, particularly in creating alternative funding models that support community well-being, housing access, and decentralized economic opportunity. All of her ventures are bootstrapped through earned revenue and community-driven fundraising, reflecting her belief in sustainable, grassroots growth. She also contributes her expertise in ecosystem building and civic engagement through service on the board of the Inter-Religious Task Force and her involvement with organizations such as the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and C3SI3.
Outside of her professional and civic work, Elizabeth is an aspiring poet who values creativity, curiosity, and connection. She is also deeply family-oriented and enjoys spending time with her two teenage sons as well as dancing the tango. Her career has been driven by a desire to create systems and spaces that better support people navigating complex social, economic, and immigration challenges, reflecting her belief that communities thrive when access, opportunity, and dignity are intentionally built into the systems that serve them.
• The George Washington University - BA, International Affairs
• The Ohio State University - BA, Arabic, Economics
• Universitat Rovira i Virgili - MA in Euro-Mediterranean Studies
• Universitat Pompeu Fabra - MIM
• Blockchain Assurance & Standardization Dynamic Coalition of the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
• InterReligious Task Force on Central America
• Ethereum Foundation
• ETHDenver
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to having the right partners around me. You don't ever build anything alone, you don't ever build in a vacuum. We don't exist in a vacuum. We only exist in the context of our environment, and the right people around me have been totally key. I would say aligning yourself with the right people has been absolutely essential to everything I've accomplished.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
To be really honest, I haven't received any good career advice. This has been part of why I decided to open my own business, because I was really tired of being stuck in systems that aren't supportive. So I think the best career advice I can offer is to value your own well-being and make sure your work supports that.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
The best thing to do is to journal, to really have a good journaling practice of both processing what you're going through day-to-day, but then also to give yourself space to dream and think about what you want. It sounds simple, but I think having that intentional space of self-reflection is actually more helpful than we want to believe, and the people I know who do it really do make the most of their lives in ways that I really respect. Putting pen to paper as often as you can in a consistent fashion is really, really important. It helps you stay grounded and hear your own voice internally about what you actually want, what you're actually going through, what you're doing, and whether what you're doing right now is or is not really aligning. It can help you change or pivot as you need to faster, because you see those patterns more starkly. Also, for women, don't be afraid to use other women for help, and be supportive of other women too. That's really, really important. My business partner is a woman, and I think we work so well together because there is parity at a lot of different levels, which is sometimes harder to achieve with a male co-founder.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The obvious answer is lack of capital. You need money to make money. From just a sheer execution standpoint, finding capital is the biggest challenge, especially if you're not born a trust fund kid, which just makes it a lot harder. But then from a growth perspective, having the right team around you to help you make good decisions is critical. Also, having real honest people who can help you pivot when you need to is important. That feedback loop is hard to find, finding the right team is challenging. I think as a woman, it's easy to think that you need a man somehow to help, but my business partner is a woman, and I think we actually work so well together because there is parity at a lot of different levels, which is sometimes harder to achieve with a male co-founder.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Honesty, open-mindedness, and harmony are the values most important to me both professionally and personally.
Locations
Sauna Cleveland
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118