So in keeping with the giving back to his hometown that he started last year, Milwaukee's newest philanthropist will announce on Monday the formation of an intriguing initiative aimed at revitalizing some of the city's poorest neighborhoods, primed by a $50 million gift from the Zilber Family Foundation.
Zilber hopes that his gift will prompt other individuals and foundations to donate to the cause as well with the goal of eventually raising a pool of $200 million.
We urge the community to pitch in.
As large a pot of money as that is, even Zilber knows it can only go so far. His plan is to use it to leverage other private and public dollars to strengthen local organizations and support specific community plans and projects in up to 10 neighborhoods on Milwaukee's north and south sides over the next five years.
Zilber plans to borrow many of the innovative ideas that have been used successfully in Chicago to revitalize neighborhoods there through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's New Communities Program.
What we like about that program is that it's a community-based, bottom-up approach to urban redevelopment rather than the more traditional top-down method. To ensure that many of those lessons and ideas are incorporated here, the Zilber Family Foundation has decided to hire Susan Lloyd as senior adviser. Lloyd, who operates her own consulting firm, served as a program director for the MacArthur Foundation for 13 years and was one of the architects of the New Communities Program.
Zilber already has touched bases with other potential donors for the remaining $150 million, according to his spokesman, Mike Mervis, and believes that many of them will step up.
As critical as the money is, what's equally important is what it represents. Namely, that people such as Zilber, a highly successful real estate developer with the capital and influence to make a difference, haven't given up on Milwaukee -- even though large swaths of the city are in the throes of seemingly intractable problems such as poverty, violent crime, drug addiction, double-digit unemployment, teenage pregnancy and fractured families.
Those woes, as Zilber rightly has noted in the past and will reiterate on Monday, have turned some people into confirmed skeptics. They are convinced that these neighborhoods and by extension their residents -- even the children -- have no future. We couldn't disagree more, and it's reassuring to see that Zilber feels the same way. Even at 90, Zilber retains the hopefulness of the young.
Milwaukee, as he plans to say Monday, "may have the best chance in decades to engineer a new future for itself and its citizens." He says he's basing that optimism on the civic and community leaders who he says are "working hard each and every day to improve conditions" in the city.
Mayor Tom Barrett and Common Council President Willie Hines will join Zilber at a news conference at 10:30 a.m. Monday in City Hall. Barrett said Zilber continues to impress him with his philanthropy, enthusiasm and desire to see Milwaukee prosper.
"He's amazingly engaged for a person of any age, much less one who is 90 years old," Barrett said Friday.
A fitting description, especially when one considers that last year alone Zilber gave $10 million to establish a School of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, $30 million to the Marquette University Law School and $1 million to the Milwaukee Boys & Girls Club.
We asked the mayor why he thinks Zilber's initiative will succeed when so many federal anti-poverty initiatives going back to the 1960s failed to meet expectations. Barrett, who served in Congress before becoming mayor, had a simple answer:
"There's no government red tape," the mayor said, adding that red tape doomed many well-intentioned federal programs before they even got off the ground.
Mervis said the New Communities approach, with the emphasis on turning around neighborhoods by focusing on results and practical goals, was especially appealing to his boss because it fits his pragmatic nature and intense dislike, as a child of the Great Depression, for wasting money.
"You support what works and get rid of what doesn't," Mervis said. Given the scale and urgency of the problems the city faces and the fact that no one's pockets are bottomless, it's hard to argue with that kind of pragmatism.
We hope other philanthropists, institutions and foundations join Zilber in investing in a more sound Milwaukee. The region's well-being depends on Milwaukee's health.
And we extend a special thanks to Zilber for generosity that speaks of a good heart and a genuine love for his hometown.
This special report was reported and written for the Editorial Board by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial writer Jerry Resler.
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