Future Milwaukee

There is a myth circulating throughout the Milwaukee area that there are no leaders in this community. But that myth ignores people like Cecelia Gore, past president of the YWCA board of directors, and Kathy Brockman, president of the Badger Association of the Blind.
The myth is predicated by the recent issues surrounding top officials in Milwaukee city and county government, but it fails to recognize that the search for leadership need not be a "top-down" process, says Rob Meiksins, executive director of Future Milwaukee, an organization that has been providing training for Milwaukee’s up-and-coming leaders for 25 years.
"We need to be looking at leaders who have been effective in more contained spheres," Meiksins said. "Then we need to bring all those leaders together with their visions and have them develop a collective vision for this community. Leadership does not have to be about the vision of one person."
The goal of Future Milwaukee is to help make the community more aware of the leaders who are working in more contained area – members of boards of nonprofit agencies, school board members, grassroots community activists, mid-level managers. It also works to train the next generation of leaders and prep them to take over board memberships and other leadership positions when current leaders move on, Meiksins said.
"It’s partially our job to get people aware of the leaders in our community," Meiksins said. "Let’s begin to recognize them and celebrate them."
The driving force behind the creation of Future Milwaukee was the desire by its founders to diversify boards throughout the community.
"The board members were getting older, and boards were made up of the same demographic," Meiksins said. "The question then became how do we find young, diverse people for these boards?"
Future Milwaukee originally was modeled after an Atlanta program called Leadership Atlanta. But Future Milwaukee’s founders saw a problem with one aspect of Leadership Atlanta’s program: it met one full day a month, which meant that if a person’s place of employment did not sponsor the person to enroll in the program, the person would have to take the day off or not participate.
"That would make it hard to get women and people of color into the program," Meiksins said.
Therefore, Future Milwaukee designed its program so that classes meet from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. every other Tuesday for eight months. That way, people can go after work even if their employers don’t sponsor them, Meiksins said.
Bringing diversity to Milwaukee’s leadership is one of the main goals of Future Milwaukee, and for about the last 13 years 38% of Future Milwaukee graduates have been minorities, Meiksins said. Future Milwaukee offers scholarships for its leadership program, and the aid typically targets minorities.
Future Milwaukee currently is making a special effort to reach out to the Native American community, Meiksins said. One Native American will graduate from the program in May, and another will enter this year’s program.
In addition to recruiting a diverse body of students to the program, Future Milwaukee encourages diversity through seminars and training students in the leadership program receive, Meiksins said. All classes in the program are taught by community members.
Leadership training not only benefits the individual receiving the training, it also is good for business and for the community in general, Meiksins maintains, because it is a way to stop the "brain drain." About 85% Future Milwaukee graduates still live in Milwaukee.
"By serving on boards, people develop a sense of ownership in the community and a responsibility to the community," Meiksins said. "They feel as if they’ve put down roots here."
One such person is Jeff Baker, a customer service manager at Strattec Security Corp. and a Brown Deer Village Board member. Baker expressed his vision for the Milwaukee area in 25 years:
"I hope to see a city united on many fronts that all of us deserve," Baker said. "I would like to see better racial and ethnic harmony, good schools developed for the future including more technical and vocational school expansion, and redevelopment of the blighted areas in Milwaukee, including the addition of single-family housing and the rebuilding of neighborhoods. I also envision a strong revitalization of the downtown corridor with Wisconsin Avenue being the starting point. The next part of that vision would spill into the industrial valley between the Third Ward and Miller Park. The potential is there for parks, entertainment, family amusement and shopping venues to be developed and complete in 25 years. I feel that with a central meeting place like this, we would have a premier area that all residents could use as a gathering point and would invoke a sense of pride and a sense of community for Milwaukee."
The leadership program is designed for people with a track record of volunteerism who now want to move into leadership and governing roles, Meiksins said. About 75% of students who complete the program are sponsored by their corporations.
In addition to Gore and Brockman, graduates include Milwaukee Common Council President Marvin Pratt, Milwaukee County Board member Lee Holloway and state Sen. Alberta Darling. Graduates have served on boards such as the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and Bottomless Closet Milwaukee. This year, Future Milwaukee began a program called Bridges, which offers board placement assistance to graduates.
"Ultimately we want to create a forum to promote coordinated and cooperative approaches to effectively address issues facing our community," Meiksins said. "Our vision is for a partnership between the public, private and nonprofit sectors. We’re all in this together."