Rachel Monaco has held many different titles over the course of her career — attorney, professor, nonprofit executive, artist — but they all share the same goal: empowerment.
“I love listening to people and identifying ways to make them shine,” said Monaco, who began her legal career in 2004 and has had a solo practice in trust and estates since 2009.
In estate planning, Monaco helps people feel good about the legacy they want to leave behind.
“I believe that giving, not receiving, is the most joyful experience we can have in this life,” she said. “The right to make a difference through our choices and actions, with whatever little we have, is fundamental to our dignity. Put another way, deciding one has the power to give is empowering in its own right.”
Philanthropy often works its way into the conversations that Monaco has with clients and, over the years, so too has the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. In 2023, she turned to the Foundation for her own philanthropy when she created the Wyldfire Foundation Fund, a donor advised fund in memory of her late husband, Corey Wilcox, who died in 2022 from pancreatic cancer.
“I practice what I preach,” said Monaco, who also included the Foundation as a beneficiary in her estate plan. “The Foundation, to me, provides a lot of
accessibility to the conversation about philanthropy and making a difference. Here is an organization that offers some real structure and support for people who might just be dabbling in the idea of philanthropy.”
Her relationship with the Foundation has taken on multiple layers over the years, having started first as a grant recipient. Monaco is the founder and former executive director of Lotus Legal Clinic, a Milwaukee-based legal clinic for victims of human trafficking and sexual assault. She served as an
assistant professor and chair of the justice department for nearly six years at Mount Mary University and was an adjunct professor in its art therapy doctoral program. She is a guest teacher for art therapy departments upon request, including Syracuse University.
In 2017, she became a member of the Foundation’s Herbert J. Mueller Society, a membership society for professional advisers.
Over the years, Monaco said she has appreciated the opportunities the Foundation has given her to learn and be in conversation with other professional advisers. She also valued the Foundation’s partnership in helping create the fund that honors her late husband.
Each spring, the Mighty Oak Memorial Run is held in Wilcox’s memory, and contributions go directly into the fund, which supports conservation, artistic creativity and art therapy, animal welfare, education and social justice, all areas the couple felt passionately about. The focus for 2024’s run was the Kettle Moraine State Forest Alliance, a nonprofit supporting the Ice Age Trail.
“I found the Foundation’s flexibility and willingness to work with me on that to be tremendous,” Monaco said. “It gives me a lot of meaning and purpose to take something horrible and turn it into something that can have a tangible, positive impact on the world. I want to be an inspiration for others to understand that it is very accessible and they can do this too."