Deborah Bachman Ratner is a dedicated civic leader and activist who has championed the arts for over three decades.  She has applied her formidable skills to a wide array of arts related initiatives that encompass establishing public school arts programs and guiding major arts institutions. She is a dedicated community leader and the founder of the award-winning ArtWorks program, an arts based job skills program for Cleveland teens that offers teenagers paid apprenticeships in the arts. The ArtWorks program has impacted over 2500 teenagers to date and was instrumental in inspiring a state of the arts digital high school in Cleveland, Ohio.
 
In 2013 Mrs. Bachman Ratner founded ReelWomenDirect. This annual award recognizes women film directors and realizes a long-standing goal to support and encourage women working behind the camera.