When we introduced Ellen Gilligan to the community in 2010 as our new president and CEO, we highlighted her strong track record of developing creative and innovative solutions to meet community needs.
It wasn’t long after putting down roots in Milwaukee that she began building upon that record to benefit residents and organizations throughout the greater Milwaukee area. Within a year, for example, she helped launch Milwaukee Succeeds, a communitywide partnership that has grown to become a leader in collaborative educational systems change.
The Foundation had earned a strong and trusted reputation in the community as a 100-plus year old steward of generosity in the region. Described by community leaders and peers as a servant leader who is both a learner and a doer, Gilligan has positioned the Foundation as an innovative community leader, convener and catalyst, working across sectors to mobilize resources to address our community’s greatest opportunities and challenges.
During her tenure, the Foundation has more than doubled its operating budget, awarded more than $774 million in grants and raised $731 million in new gifts and promises, including the largest single gift in the Foundation’s history in 2014.
In our cover story, Gilligan looks back at her time as leader of Wisconsin’s largest community foundation and the legacy she leaves, as she prepares for retirement.
Q&A with Ellen Gilligan
Q: In the era of your presidency, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation has gone from one of the community’s best kept secrets to one of the most prominent and influential catalysts for change in the region. This is not a coincidence. Your pioneering leadership, bold ideas and commitment to inclusive collaboration have guided this transformation. When you look at the Foundation today, what do you see?
A: First and foremost, I see the Foundation as 100 percent committed to our shared vision of a Milwaukee for all. We are looking holistically at how we can invest, how we can partner and how we can change inequitable systems so that everyone in our community has the opportunity to thrive. And that takes all of us — not just me, not just the Foundation, not one sector, but all of us aiming toward the best community outcomes. What I have really tried to emphasize in my position is how the community is calling on us to be a leader in this space, and it’s our role to deliver on that promise. That’s a role
we’ve grown into, and we’re still growing. Philanthropy has done a lot of good in Milwaukee through the years, but more is possible. We have been building on the traditional elements of a community foundation that serves donors and their philanthropic interests and adding new capabilities to serve the broader community. Today we are using every tool in our toolbox — whether that is convening stakeholders to develop solutions to community challenges, advocating for awareness or changes to public policy, deploying capital into neighborhoods in new ways, or ensuring all voices and all forms of philanthropy are welcome at the Foundation. That’s what it looks like to follow our North Star of racial equity and inclusion, and to build a Milwaukee for all.
Q: What do you view as the most significant change that has occurred over the past 14 years?
A: Obviously, our asset growth is tremendously important. I also think the growth of visibility and increased understanding of the importance of the Foundation as a community leadership organization in Milwaukee is critically important. I also would say the trust that we have gained. I go back to our a Milwaukee for all vision and strategic plan, which really changed the nature of the way communities of color particularly have viewed the Foundation. We’ve built tremendous trust, not only with partners and stakeholders in the communities we serve but among our donors and a broader cross section of communities. It is critically important to me that we made these generational commitments and that we carry them forward and make good on our promises.
Q: How have you noticed the shift in trust?
A: I think the most apparent way is with our work with the ThriveOn Collaboration. Five years ago, we stood on an empty stage in a vacant warehouse with a number of community residents and stakeholders and made a bold commitment. Our community engagement, our community listening sessions, our responding from a multitude of ways about what is in the ThriveOn King building, how we show up there, how our staff interacts with community and stakeholders — that is certainly an important indication of partnering with community. Milwaukee Succeeds is another. The engagement of ambassadors around early childhood education who are parents and caregivers on the front lines of advocating for change with state government is a very different way for community foundations to operate. That has created trust that we are in this together. We are working side by side with the community on many, many issues.
Q: There were certainly a lot of historic firsts during your tenure — the largest gift in 2014; a historic campaign; reaching $1 billion in assets — what are the moments that stand out for you?
A: It is the journey we’ve been on around our broader role in the community as a community leadership organization. The milestones I would pick out are all related to indicators of that. I am very proud of launching Milwaukee Succeeds, the first ever cradle-to-career partnership focused on equitable outcomes for children in all schools and putting early childhood education on everybody’s agenda. Also, On the Table MKE, which really engaged a very broad cross section of 5,000 or more people across the region to talk about how to make Milwaukee a better place for everyone to live and identified the challenges we need to address. We had never done anything like that before. People came out and embraced it and loved it. Our COVID response was a huge milestone. Not only did we act quickly, but we convened funders across the region. We have been both focused on immediate needs in all these things and long-term systems change. We were one of the founders of and a key partner in the Community Development Alliance and the first comprehensive housing plan for the city. ThriveOn King is enormous. Our first ever historic campaign successfully completed, exceeding the $700 million goal. Internally, the Foundation is not the same organization as when I entered. The staff, the policies, the Board, the practices, the culture are different. I would say I’m very proud of those changes that really help us become what we aspire to be.
Q: How do you think the Foundation is viewed by our peers compared to 14 years ago?
A: Milwaukee is seen as a leader in the field in many ways. We are a part of a larger foundation group of the top 30 community foundations. Many community foundations in that group have a larger asset base, but I would say that some of the work we are doing is work that people are trying to figure out how to do — centering community voice, focusing on educational outcomes, housing. A number of people across the country are working on affordable housing, and we just got an award from HUD for our work with the Community Development Alliance. We are fighting above our weight class for a city the size of Milwaukee in many ways. People are responding to our courageous stance as a community foundation to say we are making a generational commitment to advance racial equity. It has put us in a very significant leadership role in the field.
Q: How would you say you have grown and changed as a leader?
A: I certainly have learned a tremendous amount. I would say the understanding of the importance of community voice and centering community voice in the work we do is hugely important. It is something that I have understood in an intellectual way from my experience in community development over many years, but the last decade has really changed that practice in a very different way.
Q: What was the turning point that really brought home the importance of community voice?
A: Our generational commitment to racial equity and inclusion in 2016, which preceded the murder of George Floyd and racial reckoning. Our commitment was a result of a lot of learning and the call on the part of the Board and staff for what we as a community foundation could do to make Milwaukee a more inclusive, prosperous community for all. That was a turning point for many of us. It was a brave move on the part of the Board. It enabled me and the leadership team to be innovative, to take risks, to try things that this institution had never tried.
Q: When you first came into the position, did you envision how critical a role racial equity would play in the Foundation’s work?
A: From the time I began my career at LISC (one of the country’s largest community development organizations), I have always been very focused on how to drive resources to underserved and under-resourced communities and made a commitment to myself that this was going to a be a priority for me. I didn’t know how it would play out, but I knew it would be a priority.
I had done a significant amount of work in community development, neighborhood development and race issues in Cincinnati. In Cincinnati in 2001, we had civil unrest. We worked on police reform and had put together a broad-based collaboration housed at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation focused on long-term change. When I came to Milwaukee and had conversations with the Board and was toured around the community, I kept looking at the statistics of all the challenges that Milwaukee faces around racial disparities and gaps, everything from life expectancy to education outcomes. I kept thinking something doesn’t compute here. If you are downtown, driving along the lake, you would never know that a mile away, the conditions people live in are very different.
Q: What has been the most challenging aspect of your role as president/CEO?
A: The last 10 years, particularly the last five, have been difficult in every community. COVID-19 — which we are just beginning to understand the long-term impact of on society, on our children, on our workplaces, on our broader community — was a tremendous challenge. There was a long-overdue demand for racial reckoning at the same time. It was a very tumultuous time to be a leader of an organization trying to advance those things and serve the community. The political environment and the divisiveness in communities makes an organization that is trying to serve community and bring people together very challenging.
Q: How do you navigate that?
A: My motto is you have to keep your eye on the prize, because on any given day, it can be discouraging to take on big, systemic issues like those we are trying to address. I am optimistic by nature. I don’t think I would be in this role or field for this long if I didn’t keep my eye on the prize. I feel that we, as a country, as a foundation, as a community, can take on anything we put our minds to. How do I keep going? I think having great colleagues, having mentors and people you can problem-solve with is critically important. This is about long-term change — while today might not be great, tomorrow might have tremendous breakthroughs.
Q: You’ve spent 25 years of your career at community foundations — what led you to have such a long career in the field?
A: Community foundations are unique institutions in that they have the opportunity to bring together a broad cross section of people — donors, community residents, nonprofits, individual citizens — to focus on immediate problems and long-term issues that affect communities. One of the things I love about community foundations is that they are innovative, they can be nimble, they can be very creative in ways that many institutions can’t. We have the opportunity to engage in all of those issues and sectors in a way that many other organizations don’t — with a broad platform for community engagement.
Q: Why did you view it as important to serve on national boards while concurrently serving as leader of the Foundation?
A: The opportunity to be in an institution and to learn how to drive resources and build capacity to serve underserved communities is an important part of my continued education.
There were two national boards I’ve served on directly related to our work: CFLeads is the organization that is driving change within the community foundation field to help community foundations build the capacity to lead change. I served on that board for nine years — including three as chair. We did some national research that helped document the fact that the whole field has now embraced community leadership as a fundamental practice and the capacity community foundations need. It is about amplifying impact in the community. It’s not about how many assets you have. It’s about driving change to serve your community. That was a learning ground and a leadership opportunity for me to help influence the entire field of community foundations. I will continue to serve on that board and be an adviser.
I began my career at LISC, and I have served on the national board since 2013. It is the largest community development financial institution in the country and is driving resources to underserved rural and urban communities across America. LISC opened my eyes to the needs across the country. They are not different. People want decent, affordable housing, good schools, safe communities, access to health care.
Q: What have you enjoyed most about your tenure at the Foundation?
A: Definitely the people on our team, our Board, people I’ve gotten to know and work with in the community in all sectors. Everybody is very proud of the community we serve, and I think Milwaukee is a really special place. People love the community and want to do whatever they can to make it a better place to live for all of us. What I love the most is how much people love Milwaukee and want to lean in to make it the best it can be. So much talent. So much passion.
Q: What part of the role will you miss the most?
A: The people. Instead of retiring, I like to say that I’m rewiring, because I can’t imagine I will stop working on things I care deeply about. I will continue to serve on national boards and find ways to continue my work on social and racial justice issues. It is the people and the problem-solving and the opportunity to have a group and an institution that is focused on these things on a daily basis. It’s hard to walk away from that. I also believe in stepping aside to make way for new leadership.
Q: What excites you most about the Foundation’s future?
A: We have a tremendously talented staff that is committed to the vision we have set out. The alignment around that is one of the things I’m most proud of. Certainly, having completed a successful campaign is a gift to the next CEO. And I’m excited about ThriveOn King, which is fundamentally going to change the way the Foundation operates, is seen in the community and partners in community for generations to come. We have been so focused on the building, but our move to ThriveOn King is the starting line, not the finish line. I think what we will see over the next decade is a very different way for the Foundation to operate. What I mean is how we show up in community, how we invest in community, how we use our investments, how we partner with neighborhood stakeholders and residents in different ways, how we partner and accelerate our partnership with MCW, how we collaborate with partners on the first floor and what we’ll do to address social determinants of health over the next generation. That is tremendously exciting to me.
Q: What is important for your successor to know, do and learn?
A: The change in the field is phenomenal. It’s breathtaking, not just in terms of the rapid change of people retiring or leaving but also who is coming into the field from the perspective of the variety of professional experience. Leadership that reflects our communities in terms of race, ethnicity and gender. It’s totally different than it was when I walked into that room of larger community foundations 14 years ago. What I would say to the new leader is to get out of the office and visit every neighborhood, every organization you can and understand what residents need in the communities we are serving.