Credit: Jake Hill
Greater Milwaukee Foundation president and CEO Ellen Gilligan has announced her plans to retire from the foundation.
Gilligan, who has led the GMF for 13 years, will retire from the organization on June 30, she said, which is the date when the organization’s board hopes to have a new leader in place.
In a press release issued this week, the GMF applauded Gilligan for her work to pursue transformative change through deep investment in community priorities, and for cultivating innovative partnerships and aligning philanthropic impact.
“Ellen’s impact on the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and our community, is visible in every aspect of our work,” said Paul Jones, chair of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s board of directors. “Her vision for the foundation has transformed how and who we serve, and our vigorous strategic plan ensures the organization is strongly positioned for continued growth, innovation and impact that fulfills our promise to the community.”
GMF’s work
Serving communities in Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties and beyond since 1915, the GMF is Wisconsin’s largest community foundation and among the largest and oldest in the nation.
Under Gilligan’s leadership, the philanthropic assets stewarded by the foundation have doubled to more than $1 billion, according to the organization, and annual grant support for community organizations and initiatives has more than tripled since she joined the foundation in 2010.
Last year, the foundation and its donors invested more than $81 million through grantmaking last year, providing access to $18 million in additional capital over the last six years through an impact investing program Gilligan sponsored.
Since she began her leadership of the nonprofit, the foundation cumulatively has awarded approximately $689 million in grants and raised nearly $900 million in new gifts and promises, including the largest single gift in the foundation’s history in 2014.
Community leadership
The GMF also emphasized Gilligan efforts to increasingly elevate the foundation’s role as a community leader, convener, and catalyst, “bringing diverse stakeholders together around a shared vision for a vibrant region.”
That work has included leveraging local research and data, centering community voices and lived experience, and introducing innovative philanthropic tools and approaches to ensure the foundation’s effectiveness, integrity, and relevance to those it serves.
“The impact of a community foundation is everlasting and incredibly unique in how the organization reflects the hopes and needs and potential of the people and places it serves. No other institution is so positioned to advance generational change,” said Gilligan, whose career has been dedicated to the community foundation field. Before coming to Milwaukee, she spent 12 years at the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.
Toward that focus on generational change, Gilligan has advanced a new era at the foundation in which racial equity and inclusion is the North Star that guides decision-making, investment and action across the organization. In 2020, Gilligan led the launch of the foundation’s new strategic vision of A Milwaukee for All to focus philanthropy on mending the fault line of systemic racism that prevents individuals, families, and the region from reaching their full potential.
“The community foundation as it has evolved is the community foundation that this community needs and deserves,” Gilligan told BizTimes Milwaukee. “But you don’t have to go very far in philanthropy to understand that there are systems that have been held back people of color: education, employment, health disparities, economic opportunity. It’s everywhere you look. Race is often the key indicator of where the disparity lies, so that’s why we went right there. You can’t sort of work your way around it.”
Advancing how Milwaukee works together
Gilligan’s emphasis on collective impact was demonstrated in the earliest years of her presidency as she spearheaded the launch of Milwaukee Succeeds in 2011, the GMF said. Powered by the foundation, this communitywide partnership has grown to become a leader in collaborative educational systems change, now focused on expanding access to early childhood education for Black and Brown families and improving the high school success trajectory for Black male youth.
She also has provided leadership for the ThriveOn project development collaboration of the Foundation, the Medical College of Wisconsin and Royal Capital. Guided by community priorities and data, the collaboration is making investments in housing, early childhood education, health & wellness, economic opportunity, and social cohesion, particularly in the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Halyard Park, Harambee and Brewers Hill. It includes the historic redevelopment of the former Gimbels-Schuster’s department store in the heart of Bronzeville into a vibrant community hub named ThriveOn King, at 2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, where the foundation will move all of its operations in 2024.
Gilligan is also leading the most ambitious fundraising initiative in the foundation’s 108-year history – the $700 million priority-focused Greater Together Campaign. One of the first of its kind in the country, the campaign is focused on the long-term vitality of the community. It asks donors to contribute to five key endeavors, including the ThriveOn Collaboration; early childhood care and education initiatives; housing; impact investing, and flexible funding, which will allow the GMF to have funds to address emerging issues, pressing needs and important opportunities as they arise.
“Some of the underlying issues that are holding Milwaukee back are embedded in that campaign, and I’m very proud of the fact that we have undertaken it,” Gilligan said.
What’s next?
While she doesn’t have plans to lead a large organization again, Gilligan – one of BizTimes Media’s Wisconsin 275 – said she does plan to stay involved with the many boards she serves on that are dedicated to helping community foundations across the country.
Gilligan is the immediate past board chair of CFLeads, a national network of community foundations leading change. She also serves on the national board of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).
“It’s a new chapter for me, both personally and professionally. I hope to do some traveling with my husband and spend more time with him, but I also have been deeply engaged in some of the same issues that I’ve been engaged in at the foundation in the community foundation field at large,” Gilligan said.
She also hopes to work on initiatives around racial equity and social justice, educational opportunities, and community development.
Although a native of Cincinnati, Gilligan said she plans to continue to stay in the Milwaukee area – at least for a little while.
That is significant for the many local boards she serves on, including the Milwaukee Succeeds Leadership Table, the MKE United Downtown Action Agenda, and the Greater Milwaukee Committee. Gilligan is also a mayoral appointment to the City of Milwaukee’s Black Male Achievement Advisory Council.
Gilligan said it has been her honor to lead the GMF and work in genuine partnership with the community she loves to build a “Milwaukee for All.”
“I think that community foundations are tremendously important to communities, and I am very proud of the team that we have built here at the foundation, and a strategic plan that is well underway,” she added. “I look forward to the next leader carrying forward that work.”
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