Parks Foundation Announces $10 Million Strategic Plan

Walker Square Park. Photo taken August 14th, 2016 by Dave Reid.

The Milwaukee County Parks Foundation recently announced an ambitious plan to invest $10 million into Milwaukee County Parks over the next four years.

The foundation was established in 2019 to fundraise for the county’s parks. The system has been underfunded for decades, producing a massive backlog of maintenance and infrastructure needs estimated at approximately $500 million over five years and forcing the parks department to generate more than half of its annual operating revenue through food and beverage sales and fees for amenities like golf and venue rentals.

The foundation’s $10 million investment goal is part of a new strategic plan to increase fundraising capacity and community partnerships, and boost programming and volunteering in the parks. The foundation developed the new plan with KIN Consultant Group and Leading Inside Out.

“What we’ve been able to do well is to leverage philanthropy for key projects to make sure that our parks are more vibrant and equitable,” Rebecca Stoner, foundation executive director, told Urban Milwaukee. “And we want to do more of that, and we want to do it better.”

Since it was founded, the foundation has invested more than $4 million in 77 parks infrastructure projects, programming and events. It has organized programming that brought 16,000 into parks across the county and mobilized more than 6,000 volunteer hours, according to the foundation.

The foundation has spent the past six years building out organizational infrastructure, testing out different strategies and programs. That work is starting to pay off, and the foundation is starting to gather some forward momentum, Stoner said. She said bigger donors are starting to line up and the organization is confident it will be able to raise more and spend more on county parks.

“People love parks, and they’re eager to support, so we feel really confident that we’ll be able to do more than we’ve done in the past, especially as we focus on some larger capital projects,” she said.

The foundation is currently raising funds for two major Milwaukee County Parks infrastructure projects. One is the overhaul of Walker Square Park. The other is the replacement of the Washington Park Pool with a “Super Splash Pad” — not a pool or wading pool, but a waterpark version of the splash pad the system operates at other parks.

Part of what the foundation has been doing for the past six years is building human infrastructure; partnerships and relationships with organizations, nonprofits and private businesses that help the organization fundraise, program and raise volunteers.

“Another huge aspect of the plan is to bring 24,000 people out to parks over the next four years,” said Tristen Shorter, associate director of the foundation. 

The group runs what they call the “seeds and sprouts” model of community investment. Essentially, it’s not enough to just invest in the physical components of a park; it needs to be programmed, and people and families need to feel comfortable going there and engaging with it.

First, there’s the seeds: funding for baseball diamond maintenance, new tree plantings and rebuilt walking trails. Then the sprouts: free soccer camps, a farmers market and a flag football league.

The foundation recently launched an endowment program, called the Parks Legacy Fund. The goal over the next few years is to raise $9.5 million in philanthropic donations and $500,000 in grants. Of that, $1 million would go into the endowment.

The endowment, the individual investments, the programming, volunteering are all also touching on an intangible goal of increasing community awareness of the park system’s conditions. Engaging more residents in direct support of the county parks system is intended to increase awareness of the system’s longstanding financial challenges, Stoner said.

“We understand that philanthropy is not an ongoing, sustainable solution for parks, and we have to advocate for sustainable public funding solutions for our parks,” Stoner said. “So, through partnership, through bringing in all these people to these events, through strategically leveraging philanthropy, we’re able to grow the movement in support of parks and work towards some more solution-based outcomes.”

Existing members must be signed in to see the interactive map. Sign in.