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Milwaukee Parks Foundation Inc at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Milwaukee Parks Foundation Inc

Engage our community in supporting milwaukee county parks to collectively steward a thriving park system.

$1.3M
Granted FY2025still arriving
11
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$1.2M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.

Recreation & Sports$1.4MHuman Services$20kCommunity Improvement$18kEnvironment$16kYouth Development$16kArts & Culture$11kPublic Benefit$10kEducation$8kOther$0
02FY2025 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k7 grants · $59k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $59k
  • $250k+1 grant · $1.2M
$9,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$1.1M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
MILWAUKEE COUNTY PARKS$1,169,280
THE PARK PEOPLE$34,250
SERVING OLDER ADULTS$15,000
NEARBY NATURE$10,000
HELPING KIDS BETTER THEMSELVES$9,000
THE VILLAGE GROUP$9,000
COMFORCE MILWAUKEE$8,500
ROOTED & RISING$8,000
STREET DREAMS ACADEMY$8,000
KELLOG PEAK INITIATIVE$8,000
Individual grant recipient$8,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY24–25, $43k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%SERVING OLDER ADULTS: $20k → 17%SERVING OLDER ADULTS: $15k → 17%ROOTED & RISING: $8k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$2.7M · 5 repeat orgs$121k to everyone else

5 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
6

Total granted

$2.7M
$53k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+8%
+17%

Still filing today

60%
67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $69k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’20’22’23’24’25
Human ServicesEducationPhilanthropyArts & CulturePublic BenefitHealthOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.

Backed again, and grew

  • MC
    MILWAUKEE COUNTY ZOO
    5× · 2020–2025 · $2.6M
  • THE PARK PEOPLE OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY INC
    4× · 2022–2025 · $79k · revenue -15%
  • SERVING OLDER ADULTS OF SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN INC
    2× · 2024–2025 · $35k · revenue +8%

Funded once

  • TRUE SKOOL INC
    one grant, 2022 · $11k · revenue -26%
  • WISCONSIN POLICY FORUM INCgraduated
    one grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +28%
  • MILWAUKEE HEALTH SERVICES INC
    one grant, 2024 · $8k · revenue +2%
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Milwaukee Parks Foundation Inc

Engage our community in supporting milwaukee county parks to collectively steward a thriving park system.

Environment
2
Milwaukee Exposure & Explorer Project

Milwaukee exposure & explorer project (meep) provides a select group of central city children with opportunities and exposure to different resources that will enable them to develop skills necessary for a successful future.

Youth Development
3
Milwaukee Riverkeeper Inc

Our mission is to protect water quality and wildlife habitat in the river corridors and to advocate for sound land use in the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic River Watersheds.

Environment
4
Milwaukee Food Council Inc

The Milwaukee Food Councils mission is to support a locally anchored food system that advances Milwaukees social economic and environmental well-being through collective action.

Food & Nutrition
5
Washington Park Neighbors Inc

Washington Park Neighbors seek to provide audiences from the neighborhoods surrounding Washington Park with the opportunity to experience a wide variety of cultural entertainment through its quality and diverse programming in a historical…

Arts & Culture
6
Urban Partnership Community Developmen Corporation

To encourage and promote development of social-economic programs for low-income residents in the downtown area of the City of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Specifically aimed at improving the quality of the residents' economic and social…

Housing & Shelter
7
Arts At Large Inc

The mission of Arts @ Large is to activate Milwaukees communities to build environments that support arts-rich, lifelong learning. The organization uses the arts to cultivate inclusive and innovative communities where students, their…

Arts & Culture
8
Cool Learning Experience

Cool Learning Experience offers out of school programs for school aged children in the Waukegan area, using STEAM-based age appropriate curriculum with an environmental focus.

Education
9
Groundwork Milwaukee Inc

Bring about the sustained regeneration, improvement, and management of the physical environment by developing community-based partnerships that empower people, businesses, and organizations to promote environmental, economic, and social…

Environment
10
Southside Organizing Committee Inc

An organization dedicated to the development and sustainability of Milwaukee's near south side neighborhoods by working with and for the residents to create a safe, livable, and economically vibrant community.

—
11
Your Move Mke Inc

The organization brings families on the southside of milwaukee closer together, using programs that focus on higher-level thinking self-expression through the elements of hip hop.

Human Services
12
Shakespeare in Clark Park

Shakespeare in Clark Park produces cultural events which bridge the gap between audiences and artists by inviting community members to take part in making and shaping our productions. Our productions are rooted in the people of…

Arts & Culture
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Milwaukee Health Services Inc; the most unlike its peers is Kellogg Programs Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

12 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 12 of the 19 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
12/12
Grantees still filing
7/12
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

MILWAUKEE COUNTY ZOO: $2,560,395 · OtherMILWAUKEE COUNTY ZOO+10 more: $100,500 · OtherTHE PARK PEOPLE OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY INC: $79,250 · PhilanthropySERVING OLDER ADULTS OF SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN INC: $35,000 · Human ServicesUNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S SERVICES OF WISCONSIN INC: $8,000 · Human ServicesKELLOGG PROGRAMS INC: $8,000 · EducationFREEDOM VILLAGE OF HOPE: $8,000 · EducationTRUE SKOOL INC: $10,500 · Arts & CultureWISCONSIN POLICY FORUM INC: $10,000 · Public BenefitNearby Nature Milwaukee: $10,000 · Environment
Other$2,660,895Philanthropy$79,250Human Services$43,000Education$16,000Arts & Culture$10,500Public Benefit$10,000Environment$10,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE PARK PEOPLE OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY INC: $79,250 over 4y, 11% of budgetSERVING OLDER ADULTS OF SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN INC: $35,000 over 2y, 1.0% of budgetSHERMAN PARK COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION INC: $18,000 over 2y, 1.6% of budgetTRUE SKOOL INC: $10,500 over 1y, 1.9% of budgetWISCONSIN POLICY FORUM INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetNearby Nature Milwaukee: $10,000 over 1y, 7.7% of budgetSTREET DREAMS SOCCER ACADEMY INC: $8,000 over 1y, 3.0% of budgetMILWAUKEE HEALTH SERVICES INC: $8,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFREEDOM VILLAGE OF HOPE: $8,000 over 1y, 4.1% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Greater Milwaukee Fou…United Way of Greater…Herbert H Kohl Charit…Amazonsmile Foundation
Greater Milwaukee Foundation IncWI19.6× affinity7 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Milwaukee Parks Foundation Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Milwaukee Parks Foundation Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%funder's share of their income ↑0%13%25%38%50%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12 to 24 months.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 19 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Milwaukee Parks’ filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home