When Joseph Zilber, the founder of Milwaukee-based Zilber Ltd., announced earlier this year that he would donate $50 million in an initiative to help low-income neighborhoods in Milwaukee, he hoped to leverage an additional $150 million in contributions from others for the initiative.
However, the response to the Zilber Neighborhood Initiative has been even better than he had hoped. Several anti-poverty national foundations, impressed by the initiative and Zilber’s $50 million commitment, have expressed interest in making their own contributions. Now, Zilber thinks he can leverage $500 million for his initiative.
“We spend the $50 million, even if nobody (else) gives anything,” Zilber said. “There are foundations around the country that are interested. That’s where (Zilber Family Foundation senior advisor) Susan Lloyd will come in and help with that. I have expanded my thoughts, from where I thought there might be a 3-to-1 ratio.”
Zilber wants to make a major impact with his neighborhood initiative during the next 10 years.
“We’ve got 10 years to make it work, and I think it will go beyond 10 years to be frank with you, with everything we expect to do,” Zilber said.
‘For the kids’
Much of the initiative is aimed at helping the children of low-income families in Milwaukee have a chance for a better future.
“Most of this is going to be for the kids,” Zilber said. “We are hoping to save a lot of young people and get them to go to college and get them to be like (Barack) Obama or something like that, so they can have a voice in this world.”
Zilber said he is expanding the goals of the initiative and now hopes to tackle major societal problems, including gun violence, gangs and drug use in the neighborhoods.
“Originally my goals were to take care of battered women and children, take care of the homeless, take care of the food banks, take care of training for the people, help with taking care of education,” he said.
“Those were the original goals that I had in mind. It has now gotten so that we are way beyond that. We will try to take care of those things, but we also will try to take care of the social problems and take care of the younger children and make sure that they have a chance and that their parents have a chance, too. We’d like to make sure we are able to solve some of those problems. I’m sure I can’t do it in my lifetime. But if we can get started, it will be something,” he said.
“Maybe this is too big an undertaking, but I don’t think so,” Zilber said. “Not if we have the right help. If we have the right help, it will work. It could not work if I tried to do it myself. That’s way out of the question. Although I always feel like I can do anything.”
Last year, Zilber announced another $50 million in community contributions, including $30 million to the Marquette University Law School and $10 million to help create a School of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Zilber has received some help in deciding how to spend the $50 million for his neighborhood initiative. He put out a public call for ideas for his initiative and received a lot of feedback.
“I am so shocked at the ideas that people sent to me,” he said. “I have a book of 300 pages of ideas that people sent me. I didn’t expect any of that. A lot of those ideas are going to be used. A lot of them, of course, were just asking for funds for their favorite charity, but that’s to be expected.”
Birthday present
Zilber, who celebrated his 91st birthday on Nov. 13, said he wanted to give back to the community while he was still alive so he could participate in the process of how his contributions are used.
“I think that when you get older and you say to yourself, ‘Look, I’m going to be leaving this money to trustees and they will have all the fun of doing what they want to do with the money,'” he said. “Why shouldn’t I have the challenge? Why shouldn’t I have the fun and enjoyment of being able to do this? That’s about what it amounts to.”
Although he spends much of his time at his home in Hawaii, Zilber still has a home in downtown Milwaukee and is making the contributions because he cares deeply about his hometown and wants to see it thrive again.
“Milwaukee is a great city,” Zilber said. “By God, Milwaukee needs this. As long as I am alive, I intend to monitor this very closely. And I expect to be alive a long time.”
