In 1997, after three years of grantmaking, the Fund's sponsoring Committee requested that the Fund Advisors conduct a brief feasibility study of key issues and themes that many nonprofits were facing. Six topics were identified and studied by the Fund Advisors who reviewed the Fund's grantmaking experience, interviewed selected nonprofit leaders, contacted donors in other communities, and facilitated several Committee discussions. Earned income and social entrepreneurship emerged as a clear area to address.

The assessment of earned income was completed in June 1997. Key findings of the study resulted in a recommendation to pursue an initiative that promoted earned income and enterprise development through grants and other strategies. Dramatic changes in the local environment fueled the Committee's interest. Identified changes in the landscape included: adjusting the funding of child welfare services; reviewing and recasting the State's approach to mental health funding; reorganizing the State's funding and services to the elderly; and, changes in policies and approaches to welfare reform (W-2), job training, and job placement.

Human services were not the only groups to be affected by the changing landscape. The April 1997 United Performing Arts Fund Task Force Report of the Greater Milwaukee Committee found that existing earned income sources for area arts organizations were potentially overly optimistic, in light of audience statistics.

This environment created a situation encouraging nonprofits to identify new, sustainable income sources. Local leaders have been resourceful in connecting mission to revenues.

• Walter Sava wanted to feed older people and others who were attending a south side community center.
• Richard Oulahan saw a need to create jobs for Spanish-speaking clients who were laid off from neighborhood factories.
• Reverend Roy Nabors and Bill Lock agreed to find a way to assist unemployed skilled workers locate decent jobs.
• Janelle Klumb and a group of Native Americans decided to celebrate their heritage in a very public manner.

As a result of the efforts, a bustling café serves customers daily at the United Community Center; auto mechanics, printing and customer service training businesses bustle at Esperanza Unida; an ambitious development of several businesses is housed under the umbrella of Community Enterprises of Greater Milwaukee; and, the Indian Summer Festival draws crowds to its annual lakefront celebration.

The knowledge that healthy nonprofit organizations have a diverse income mix, and that local groups were experimenting with such projects, encouraged the Fund's sponsors to consider spawning an initiative. Grant applications to the Fund had also included a reasonably large number of strategic, marketing, and business planning requests driven by this new program environment. The results of the Fund Advisor's feasibility study, coupled with the idea of promoting a diverse income mix, and the availability of an experienced partner in the National Center for Social Entrepreneurs, led the Fund to establish an initiative in 1998 on Social Entrepreneurship.

Some of the results of this initiative are profiled on the Fund's web site. Many organizations and individuals including the Fund have worked to achieve these ends. The Fund continues to review and underwrite management projects in this area.

If you would like to learn more about the Social Entrepreneurship projects past and present, click here.