With lead role in ThriveOn Collaboration, Foundation makes generational investment in historically Black neighborhoods
When the Greater Milwaukee Foundation decided to make its future home on King Drive, its leaders knew its commitment to and connection with the neighborhood could not stop there.
“It’s really about building a strong community for everyone,” said Ken Robertson, Foundation executive vice president, COO and CFO. “These inequities have created structural barriers and prevented Black folks from creating wealth. The Foundation is unapologetically leaning into that, recognizing there are structural changes that need to be made.”
As part of the ThriveOn Collaboration, the Foundation is investing in priority areas identified by community — providing grants and impact investments to address inequities in the areas of housing, early childhood education, economic opportunities and health and wellness.
“[ThriveOn] is changing the way we work,” Robertson said. “We’re used to spreading resources like peanut butter. Everyone got a little piece. This is forcing us to make harder choices and focus our dollars. We believe that focus will lead to real outcomes and real results.”
Making housing access more equitable and affordable One of the major ways the Foundation has evolved is by centering community voice, Robertson said. This importance became evident in the first visioning session in 2019 when displacement and gentrification dominated the conversation.
“It was important for us to have empathy and be there with people to feel what they were feeling,” said Darlene Russell, the Foundation’s director of community engagement. “We had to be uncomfortable, be open and listen.”
While it could not single-handedly solve the issue, the Foundation’s role in cross-sector leadership helped create the MKE United Anti-Displacement Fund, which provides grants to ensure long-time, low- and moderate-income homeowners living in some near-downtown neighborhoods are not displaced by rising taxes caused by accelerated economic development. More than $208,000 has been distributed. Seventy-five percent of recipients have been people of color.
The Foundation also is committed to increasing homeownership and supporting local developers — particularly people of color. This fall it provided $500,000 in capital to seed a program that will rehab 150 homes in Milwaukee. The program is spearheaded by a Black-led community development financial institution and will work exclusively with developers who graduated from the Associates in Commercial Real Estate program, which recruits people of color to the real estate profession.
Ensuring access to high quality early childhood education While ThriveOn King will include a flagship early childhood education center, the Foundation was intent on ensuring that the other 38 neighborhood providers had the financial resources, technical assistance and support needed to provide high-quality care to area families. It is mobilizing $5 million over the next five years toward that end.
“Our goal is that every family in that neighborhood should have high-quality options, regardless of where their children go,” said Kathryn Dunn, the Foundation’s senior vice president and chief strategy officer.
The Foundation provided funding to 4C for Children to create a resource room that provides a curriculum library and access to supplies providers need, such as laminators and paint.
Through its Thriving Spaces program, the Foundation will provide grant support over the next year to eight to 10 home and family-based providers to enhance outdoor play areas, improve air quality and expand storage or other aspects of their facilities to achieve a higher quality rating.
By providing access to such resources, what the Foundation is saying to providers is “we believe in you; we support you and we value you,” said Tanya Johnson, an education consultant who is working with the Foundation on Thriving Spaces.
Increasing the stability of the small business community
The Foundation believes in creating more equitable economic opportunities for small businesses in other sectors as well. In 2021, through its ThriveOn Small Business Loan program, it rapidly deployed $780,000 in low-interest loans to help 17 businesses reopen after the pandemic, hire or sustain employees or improve operations. Eighty percent of them were in the surrounding neighborhoods. All were owned by people of color.
A $1.54 million Foundation loan to JCP Construction helped the Blackled fi rm, located on King Drive, add to its workforce and capital resources. Those were two crucial areas as JCP adds to its book of business with projects such as ThriveOn King.
The Foundation is working with The Business Council to help seven restaurants and five retailers along the corridor to get the technical assistance they need over the next year to grow and sustain their businesses.
“We invest in people that have a hard time finding the capital needed to do what they want to do and in areas that don’t normally get traditional funding,” said Kermiath McClendon, the Foundation’s impact investing manager. “We’re changing the narrative in these areas of inequality.”
Eliminating health disparities in communities of color
Through the work of the Medical College of Wisconsin and Versiti, the collaboration will invest in access to health and wellness facilities, healthy food options and preventive health services in the area. The long-term goal is to reduce rates of chronic disease.
Strengthening social cohesion
Overall, as its name suggests, the collaboration is focused on creating a thriving community. Partners can do just that through relationship building, something community has called for from the beginning, said David Nelson, an associate professor at MCW and co-lead of the collaboration’s food access work group.
The main part of doing so is by being present in community and building trust, said Bregetta Wilson, a Harambee resident who helped lead the collaboration’s community engagement efforts for 1-1/2 years.
“You can’t say you want to be in a space where people are living and not show up,” said Wilson, who remains engaged on several workgroups and is helping co-lead a new Harambee Neighborhood Association.
Twenty-two-year Harambee resident Dalvery Blackwell appreciates the work Wilson and others have done to develop trust and engage the community.
“I like the intentionality of making sure that those helping with the development are people who look like and reflect the community,” said Blackwell, noting the powerful message that is sent by having three Black men — Robertson of the Foundation, Greg Wesley of MCW and Kevin Newell of Royal Capital — serving as the collaboration’s leaders. “That shows commitment, and it shows investment.”
Blackwell, Travis Landry and others serve on the ThriveOn Collaboration Community Advisory Council. They regularly contribute to decisionmaking related to ThriveOn King and help lead the collaboration’s grantmaking in the adjacent neighborhoods, which distributed $90,000 to grassroots groups to date.
Over the past four years, collaboration partners have participated in community cleanups and neighborhood celebrations. They have supported neighborhood entrepreneurs by hosting visioning sessions and office hours at local businesses. In July, after two long years dominated by virtual meetings, collaboration members reunited with residents in person at a block party, celebrating the strength of their ongoing relationships.
“They let the community speak for what they want to do,” said Landry, who works for WestCare Wisconsin, a nonprofit in Harambee. “They’ve proven that they want to do work in the community.”