Our Story

Milwaukee Succeeds is driven by a vision of cradle-to-career success that’s rooted in racial equity, community voice and systems change. We’ve taken a radical step away from traditional decision-making structures to put power in the hands of our communities and create equitable outcomes for our children.

Then vs. Now

Milwaukee Succeeds was launched by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation in 2011 as a way to unite the community around a common goal: bringing about lasting change to the way education works for children in Milwaukee.

In 2019 we began to re-envision our work, and moved our focus from direct service programming to long-term, systemic change. The events of 2020 made it clearer than ever — it was time to change.

 
 

Shifting Priorities

Before our strategic shift in 2019, Milwaukee Succeeds focused on 11 different areas of educational importance. These priorities ranged from pre-school readiness to college completion. Although our goals had good intention, we knew we could make more of an impact if our energy was focused on select areas of achievement.

While still steadfast in our mission — to improve education for every child in every school, cradle to career — we decided to narrow our vision to two key areas: Early Childhood Education and High School Success.

Guiding Principles

While we focus on our two specific areas of importance, there are principles and guidelines we need to keep in mind to make sure our work is both ethical and effective.

In order to advance equity in schools, we believe that students, parents and caregivers MUST be at the center of decision making. We also believe that systemic racism MUST be at the forefront of all our conversations.

Anti-racism, creating space for community voice and changing systems of traditional power are the sustaining principles of this mission.

“If we are going to have a true educational system that's designed to educate EVERY kid, then we have to tear it down, start over and rebuild it so every child benefits from it.”

-LaNelle Ramey, Executive Director of MENTOR Greater Milwaukee