NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACT REPORT CREATING STRONGER NEIGHBORHOODS TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter from the President & CEO 2 NEIGHBORHOOD STORIES Revitalizing community spaces 3 Supporting resident leaders 5 Making a difference for homeowners 7 Building a social community 9 HEALTHY NEIGHBORHOODS Introduction 11 Map of Healthy Neighborhoods 13 Capitol Heights 15 Dunbar Oaks/Tower Hill/ (Waukesha) 17 Harambee/Riverwest 19 Havenwoods 21 Kinnickinnic River Neighborhood 23 Layton Boulevard West 25 Sherman Park 27 Thurston Woods/Old North Milwaukee 29 PARTNERS IN PHILANTHROPY Northwestern Mutual Foundation 31 Kopmeier Family Fund 33 1 NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACT REPORT LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO When it comes to neighborhoods, place matters. We together to build a all know that where we live greatly influences how we better community live. Many of the factors that define our quality of life by supporting one — economic security, health and safety, proximity to another. school or work, access to services and resources, and connections to neighbors — are related to the vitality The Foundation of our neighborhoods and our city. is committed to supporting ideas and Vibrant neighborhoods are the lifeblood of any initiatives – both large community. An investment in healthy neighborhoods, and small – developed therefore, is an investment in the people who live and led by residents there. This belief, coupled with the generosity of who care about making donors over generations, has helped guide the their neighborhood Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s neighborhood a better place to live, Ellen M. Gilligan grantmaking, partnerships and policy efforts. work and play. Success is possible as we bring residents, community-based Strengthening neighborhoods takes many forms. You organizations, businesses and donors together to see it in the conversion of a vacant lot to a pocket work toward common aspirations. As you read these park. You realize it as physical improvements make pages, you will see how stronger neighborhoods lead a house feel more like a home. You experience it to a stronger region for us all, and the role each of us as community leaders emerge and neighbors come can play. Yours in partnership, Ellen M. Gilligan President & CEO Milwaukee’s Capitol Heights neighborhood GREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION 2 REVITALIZING COMMUNITY SPACES On the trail to creativity Community development initiative reactivates, revitalizes Beerline Trail Milwaukee’s Beerline Trail may seem community redevelopment. Through but work began in earnest in 2014, like just a 1.3-mile stretch of pavement art installations, events, and other thanks to investments by ArtPlace with touches of art that intersects two performances, residents engage America and later by the Kresge city neighborhoods. more with their neighbors and Foundation, both known for creative neighborhood. Art not only alters the placemaking work. Collectively, they But look more closely and the trail landscape, it can also alter perceptions have invested $1.6 million. literally – and figuratively – represents and build pride. a pathway to revitalization in two areas “They are demonstrating some muscle that have had their share of challenges. “It’s a place for us to remember we in this space to do the work,” said are neighbors and a place to care Michelle Johnson, program officer How exactly? By using arts and culture about together,” said Sara Daleiden, with the Kresge Foundation, about the as the common denominator and a consultant with the GMC on the project. driving force. project. The trail has taken on new life thanks That’s what the Greater Milwaukee Creative placemaking reflects one of to open mic nights, murals and old Committee, Riverworks Redevelopment the Foundation’s key neighborhood shipping containers turned into Corporation and other partners strategies — strengthening physical, temporary creative spaces. Fruit trees envision with the Beerline Trail economic and social vitality of have been planted. Art installations, Neighborhood Project, a creative neighborhoods — by putting arts such as “Streetlights” by artist Tyanna placemaking project that is developing and culture at the forefront of building Buie, have popped up. new vibrancy along a once abandoned, social connections, which in turn blighted railway corridor. shapes development. The Foundation Buie saw her creation, a visual has been a core funding partner. depiction of the bridging together of Creative placemaking describes two communities, as a metaphor for using arts and culture as a way to Groundwork for the project was laid in the larger project. activate public spaces and shape 2010 when the city acquired the land, 3 NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACT REPORT On the trail to creativity (Top) Old shipping containers were repurposed into performance spaces as part of the Beerline Trail Neighborhood Project. (Bottom) Various design elements — such as these mosaic decorated tree stumps — add color to the trail. “We are the people who make our initiatives, including creative community what it is,” she said. entrepreneur development and “We need to be the light in our storybuilding. community.” Ultimately, the partners hope to see Daleiden likens the Beerline’s the project spur more integration potential to Menomonee Valley’s between the two neighborhoods, Three Bridges Park in that it rethinks increase property values and create old industrial space. But she and a new paradigm for community others see the trail and surrounding development work. 8-acre linear park as much more. Darryl Johnson, Riverworks’ “Trails and parks are a great way to executive director, grew up blocks stimulate development,” she said. from the trail and regularly walked it “There’s a lot of room to imagine to get to nearby Lincoln and Gordon something new.” parks. He’s seen the blight in the area caused by the departure of American That imagining is powered by Motors Corporation in 1988, but also diverse partners and lots of resident has witnessed incremental progress. input from the beginning, one of the tenets of creative placemaking. “I can see the momentum where In 2015, 65 individuals, including things are starting to come back,” he residents, businesses, government said. “The trail is one of those things and nonprofits, participated in a we can definitely build upon.” two-day session that led to seven GREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION 4 SUPPORTING RESIDENT LEADERS Programs build leaders, capacity for long-term community change In her church and in her community, the entire community. The Greater Amani resident Octavia Parker has been Milwaukee Foundation has invested a youth director, Sunday school teacher more than $370,000 in such capacity- and former vice president of Milwaukee building programs, believing that by Inner-City Congregations Allied for engaging residents and developing Hope. their leadership skills, they offer a more sustainable way of continuing She knew she had a gift for bringing the work in improving quality of life in people together, but didn’t necessarily neighborhoods. consider herself a leader. Thanks to the Neighborhood Leadership Institute NLI started in 2012 when several local and Building Neighborhood Capacity funders who had long invested in Program, the once behind-the-scenes nonprofits and programs, including the Octavia Parker volunteer is now a community organizer Foundation, Zilber Family Foundation on the front lines of strengthening one and Northwestern Mutual Foundation, and the influence they provide in of Milwaukee’s most challenged and were looking to build neighborhood neighborhoods,” said Jeanette Mitchell, impoverished neighborhoods. capacity in a different way. Through program director of Cardinal Stritch the 10-month program, 56 participants University’s Leadership Center, who “They gave me a lot more confidence,” to date who work for a nonprofit or helped develop the curriculum. said Parker, who was recruited to work live in one of 23 neighborhoods have for the Dominican Center for Women. developed their leadership abilities, Parker recognizes herself more as broadened their networks and learned an asset within Amani and now, as a The programs aim at creating a broad best practices they can implement. community organizer, is working to base of community leaders like Parker develop more leaders like her. and building up people power citywide “It is about helping them build the that, once harnessed, can help revitalize capacity to understand themselves 5 NEIGHBORHOOD IMPACT REPORT Big impact with small investments Revitalizing neighborhoods take time. But sometimes the transformative spark can come from something as simple as a “That is how we build Parker, Metcalfe Park’s Danell communitywide cookout spearheaded by a neighborhood capacity,” said Cross and Muskego Way’s Juanita neighborhood resident. Parker, who works with the Valcarcel act as galvanizing forces Dominican Center’s Building to connect residents to resources Just ask Amani resident Octavia Parker. She Neighborhood Capacity Program. and help develop relationships that helped organize Amani’s first community “We feed off of each other.” can create solutions. cookout, which was held in a church parking lot. Over heaping plates of ribs, Milwaukee was selected in 2012 Amani residents mobilized to macaroni and cheese, collard greens and as one of four cities to participate provide key input to the design of peach cobbler, more than 250 neighbors in the BNCP, a federal program a revamped Moody Park. Muskego connected and the community was fed. that offers technical assistance