Greater Milwaukee Foundation :: Foundation takes pulse of community

Foundation takes pulse of community

Working together as a community to improve lives and livelihoods requires a common understanding of our region’s characteristics and how experiences differ among different people.

An important tool in building that community knowledge base is authentic and locally tailored research that measures what matters and provides insight into the challenges and opportunities present in the region. The Greater Milwaukee Foundation helps provide such resources for the community by conducting and commissioning unique research and reports that everyone – from policymakers to nonprofits to corporations – is invited to use to inform their work.

The Foundation recently produced its third and updated Vital Signs study, which benchmarks the four-county metro Milwaukee area against 15 other regions, including many considered competitors in economic development and talent retention. Perspective is given across more than 50 different indicators, including some for which data has been disaggregated by race to provide more actionable information for improving equity in the region.

Vital Signs has enabled us, for example, to understand:

Overall homeownership rates in metro Milwaukee have been steadily declining for years, and while 68.4 percent of white residents own their homes, only 38.5 percent of Hispanic/Latino residents and 26.6 percent of African American residents do.

While metro Milwaukee ranks just above the national average of $55,775 for median household income, African American households at $28,879 and Hispanic/Latino households at $39,790 fare far worse, while median income in white households is $65,862.

Minority business ownership in metro Milwaukee is on a 15-year upswing. Nearly 20 percent of all businesses in the region are minority-owned, placing metro Milwaukee fifth out of the 16 regions compared in the study.

“We recognize that decades of inequities and circumstances have led to marginalized communities,” said Ellen Gilligan, Foundation president & CEO. “Through research like Vital Signs, we are continuing our efforts to serve as a catalyst for positive change that will help move our entire region forward and, importantly, help populations of color who are disproportionately affected by poverty reach their full potential.”

Download the latest report

VITAL SIGNS

Earlier research and reports