Greg Wesley, President and CEO, Greater Milwaukee Foundation on Investing in the Community

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Photo by Tom Jenz

Greg Wesley

I’ve been told by Milwaukee leaders that for the Black inner city to revive, boosting the economy will create a prospering community on the northwest side. The Greater Milwaukee Foundation is all about community, not just talking but doing. Led by its new President and CEO, Greg Wesley, GMF believes that affordable housing, a strong small business sector and a well-trained workforce are the elements that foster community.  

The clout is there. Founded in 1915, GMF is the second oldest community foundation in America with $1.1 billion in assets. As a partner in the recent ThriveOn Collaboration, GMF shepherds investment in community resources along the Dr. Martin Luther King Drive commercial corridor in Bronzeville. 

To find out more, I met with Wesley at the GMF offices in the restored five-story ThriveOn King building on King Drive. It was recently converted from the historic Gimbels Department Store that had been shuttered for over 20 years. 

At 54, Greg Wesley is tall and fit, with silver screen looks and a competitor’s sense of drive. He walks the line between an athlete and an intellectual. In our conversation, he articulated his plan “to bring back community and improve lives.” I could feel his commitment, almost as if it was part of his essence.  

Wesley also serves on the boards of MHS Health Wisconsin, Versiti Blood Center, Milwaukee World Festival, the Greater Milwaukee Committee, Teach for America Milwaukee (Chair), the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee (Immediate Past Chair). 

Tell me about your background, your parents, neighborhoods, and schooling. What was life like for you in your formative years?  

I grew up in the steel town of Gary, Indiana, a blue-collar city. I walked the streets to the three schools I attended. It was a safe neighborhood where families looked out for one another. I went to Theodore Roosevelt High School where I was active in sports. I had an outstanding childhood because my community was supportive of the kids. My mother was a case worker for the state of Indiana. My father worked as a welder in the steel mills. Hard working community, and ours was a hard-working family. I learned to care about the concept of community by connecting to people who looked out for one another. 

You earned your college degree from Indiana University. I understand you later went to the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison. Why UW Law School? 

After college, I worked a year in Colorado intending to become a sports agent. But I wanted an additional credential to advance. I chose to get a law degree at UW Law School, which had a long history of matriculating African American students. At law school, my world opened up. After graduation, I practiced law for 18 years with Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan in Milwaukee. I was fortunate to have good mentors like Martin Schreiber, former Wisconsin governor, and Marvin Pratt, former City Council President and Interim Mayor. I learned a lot about Milwaukee by paying close attention to the news, and I got involved in a number of organizations. I still am. 

In 2016, you left the law firm and went to work at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Why the switch of careers? 

Dr. John Raymond, the President & CEO, hired me. I became the senior vice president of strategic alliances and business development at the Medical College. John Raymond wanted me to help the Medical College align more with the broader community in general. I worked there for eight years before moving on to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation where I had served on the board of directors. 

Why did the Greater Milwaukee Foundation move its offices to the ThriveOn King building in Bronzeville this past year? 

This was all part of the ThriveOn Collaboration to improve the lives of marginalized Black and Brown citizens. The Medical College and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation were looking to have an even greater community impact. ThriveOn King is located on King Drive in the heart of Bronzeville, which is primarily African American and needs investments. That means economic development, employment, food access, education, and health outcomes. The Medical College occupies two floors in this building, and our GMF offices occupy the fourth floor. The first floor includes significant community gathering space and also space for our partners including Versiti Blood Center, JobsWork MKE, Malaika Early Learning Center, Kinship Café for healthy food and other health and wellness components. We at GMF are still a philanthropic bank but also a community leader and investor. This has now become the anchor building of the Bronzeville community. 

I understand the purpose of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation is to use its resources to address priority areas and close the chronic gaps in community and individual well-being. This can be done through grants, partnerships, research and advocacy. Can you elaborate on these chronic gaps? 

At the highest level, the foundation is working to raise the quality of life for everyone in our four-county region by investing in areas that impact people most, from basic needs to arts and culture. We focus in particular on systems change to develop solutions to deep socio-economic issues, which lead to those chronic gaps you mention. For instance, health and educational outcomes for Black and Brown communities. Even the arts. Pick an indicator, and you will find chronic gaps. Milwaukee had been a manufacturing powerhouse of a city for generations. But most of those jobs are long ago, and the world is changing. If Milwaukee wants to compete on a global stage, we have to improve the opportunities for Black and Brown citizens. This will help all of Milwaukee.  

So, you at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation are trying to fill in those chronic gaps? 

We are not trying to. We are. The fact that we are now located in Bronzeville centralizes us in the effort to improve outcomes and highlight community issues, for instance, the quality of the food inner city residents eat. 

A lot of those inner-city neighborhoods are food deserts. 

At one time, the area where we are today on King Drive had been a food desert. But now this area has quality food markets and restaurants.  

Does the Greater Milwaukee Foundation invest in small businesses? 

In a way. We invest in nonprofit organizations who provide help to small businesses. We also have an Impact Investing arm to help business ventures. But we will always have our grant-making program for community improvement.  

Who are the donors to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation? 

We honor our donors’ privacy unless they permit otherwise, but we do have generous donors who will earmark their contributions for certain causes or broader areas such as education.  

How does your grant funding work? How would I get a grant? 

We only award grants to nonprofit organizations. You have to submit a grant application. But we do have our Impact Investing Arm for entrepreneurs to get started or to help finance community developments. For instance, we have ThriveOn Small Business Loans focusing on Black and Brown people and also women. They own local businesses that help a neighborhood thrive.  

In 2023, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation assets were $1.1 billion. In that year, GMF made gifts of $52.4 million. What would be an example of a gift? 

Establishing a Donor-Advised Fund is one type of gift. Donors can then identify the priority areas where they want their funds to be allocated such as housing, arts, education, or youth-serving organizations. Another example is through planned estates where people put GMF in their estate plans. In other words, we inherit an amount of their proceeds. Another way are Agency Endowments where GMF helps nonprofits invest and grow a sustainable source of revenue. We have about 1,500 charitable funds.  

You also made $56.7 million in grants. What would be an example of a grant? 

Board-directed funding is one, $10.9 million. Our board of directors oversee that grant funding. The other grants come through the donor-recommended side of our organization, about $45.8 million in 2023. Meaning, donors made their individual contributions through their fund at the Foundation to something they felt was worthwhile. 

As a sidebar, I have written stories about nonprofit organizations in Milwaukee. Some of their leaders have told me there are too many “silos,” namely nonprofits doing the same thing but not collaborating. Can you comment? 

I’ve heard that before, but what I keep wondering is how do we change that? The Greater Milwaukee Foundation is collaborating right here in the ThriveOn building. We are working with the Medical College of Wisconsin, the developer Royal Capital, Versiti Blood Center, JobWorks MKE, and Malaika Early Learning, all in one building on King Drive in Bronzeville. We don’t want to fight for last place. We want to align with organizations that have common interests. We want to inspire a broad group of people, community partners, nonprofits and small businesses so that everyone sees there is a place for them. 

The inner-city neighborhood community activists are rarely being heard or funded. They are volunteers. They help reduce crime, reckless driving, look out for families, and sponsor events. But they have little or no money. How do they enter into the nonprofit picture? Can they get help?  

These volunteers are the voices of their communities, but they don’t have all the tools to access philanthropy. We need to find a place to teach them how to set up a structure in order to seek funding. At GMF, we have a legal obligation to make sure the donations go to only nonprofit organizations. We need to get the community organizers connected to organizations equipped to help them access resources for greater impact.  

A lot of these street leaders and organizers would not know how to write a grant. 

We are hearing this, and we are trying to educate them on grants so they can access the dollars. For example, we have a Community Advisory Council in our work with the ThriveOn Collaboration, and advisers each received stipends for their time. We also educated them on the process of getting grants and to understand how we as funders work. And those residents help decide how money gets sent out in their neighborhoods.  

I understand GMF works to improve early childhood education by focusing on healthy birth outcomes and improving access to childcare. 

We do have a huge focus on early childhood education. Malaika Early Learning school is right in this building. Eighty percent of your brain develops by the time you are age three. Too many Black children live in inequitable spaces.  

What about affordable housing? 

We are investing in affordable housing. This ThriveOn King building will soon have 90 units of affordable apartments. We are a founder and funders of the Community Development Alliance which helps increase homeownership and reduce displacement. 

Do you make investments in the arts? 

Our donors have a strong focus in the arts. We are doing a lot here in this large building. We commissioned about 20 artists to produce work about Bronzeville: Brad Bernard, Reginald Baylor, Evelyn Terry and more. 

For this area of Bronzeville along King Drive and the adjoining neighborhoods to be successful, I think you have to build a thriving neighborhood economically. 

Economy. That’s it. If you start on King Drive from Pleasant Street and drive north, you can see positive changes through small and large businesses and also the number of great schools, like Golda Meir and Dr Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy. 

You only recently took the job as the President and CEO of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. What is the strategic plan for the future? 

We will stay the course on the priorities we discussed today. But one opportunity I am excited about is economic mobility focus, moving people up the ladder. Jobs are very important, good jobs. Milwaukee is a wonderful place to live and where people can do really well if opportunity exists.