Herzfeld Foundation

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Herzfeld Foundation

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The Herzfeld Foundation was established to carry forward the generosity of founders Richard and Ethel Herzfeld.

We support nonprofit organizations that enrich Milwaukee through arts and culture and strengthen educational and civic institutions.

10/15/2026

It was a pleasure to attend the St. Francis Children's Center annual dinner at the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center last week. St. Francis serves more than 1,200 children annually to fulfill their mission of ensuring that regardless of background or ability, the children they serve can overcome challenges and achieve success within their homes and community.

Our Board of Directors recently approved a $45,000 grant to SFCC to support a full-time special education teacher in their early childhood program, as well as the purchase of a handicapped-accessible bus that will ensure Milwaukee children and families can better access the center’s educational programming and supportive services. We are proud to support SFCC’s outstanding mission and leadership!

10/13/2026

We are proud to announce a $100,000 capital grant to the Haggerty Museum of Art on the campus of Marquette University, which we recently had the pleasure of touring. Our funds will contribute to a major renovation project that will modernize the building’s core infrastructure and improve its lighting. The grant will replicate a $100,000 gift from the foundation in 1989 that created the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation gallery within the museum.

The Haggerty Museum of Art fosters important learning experiences with and through art for more than 10,000 annual visitors. We are pleased to be able to help its leaders with their efforts to properly maintain and improve one of our community’s museum jewels.

10/09/2026

A special thank you to our friends at for recently giving us a tour of the new Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin, which is slated to open in the spring of 2027. Pictured here are MPM President/CEO Ellen Censky and Herzfeld Board President Fred Haberman in the future home of the butterfly vivarium on the top floor of the new museum building.

We are very proud to be one of the top foundation donors to the new museum, which will greatly enhance the visitor experience and provide another huge economic boost to the area surrounding Fiserv Forum. While the new building is not yet complete, our tour showed us that it will be a world-class facility that will add to the impressive list of arts and cultural treasures possessed by our community.

10/07/2026

We have completed our second-ever competitive early childhood education (ECE) grants cycle, and we are excited to announce 22 grants totaling $751,500 to support Milwaukee’s youngest learners. This is an increase from 17 grants totaling $540,000 in 2025. We also experienced an increase in grant applications, receiving a total of 43 applications compared to 26 in 2025.

Our grantees include providers serving infants and toddlers in disadvantaged Milwaukee communities, organizations serving young children with disabilities, and a variety of groups offering nature education, music education, and early literacy programs. We will be highlighting some of our grantees in the following weeks, and the full list will be posted on our website.

Read More: https://www.herzfeldfoundation.org/blog/herzfeld-board-awards-more-than-$750,000-to-support-early-childhood-education-in-milwaukee

09/30/2026

The Herzfeld Foundation is proud to be the lead funder for a research project conducted by the Wisconsin Policy Forum to assess the state of the region’s nonprofit sector. Other contributors include the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Milwaukee Bucks Foundation, Northwestern Mutual Foundation, and the Zilber Family Foundation. Staff from the office of Milwaukee Mayor Cavelier Johnson also are part of the project’s advisory group.

The project will produce two reports. The first will use data from IRS Form 990 tax filings to explore trends in the size of the nonprofit sector in Milwaukee County, how its funding mix has changed, and the characteristics of its various subsectors (e.g. human services, youth development, arts and culture). The second will add context to data findings via a survey of nonprofit leaders that will gauge their views on the state of philanthropy and their long-term financial health. Both reports will compare findings to those from similar reports published by the Forum in 2014 and 2016 (including the one shown here).

Stay tuned for release of the first report by the end of this year!

09/24/2026

Thank you to Damian Buchman and The Ability Center (TAC) for inviting us to a groundbreaking last week for Moss Universal Park. The new park will offer all-inclusive ballfields, adaptive play equipment, sensory-safe playgrounds, and other innovative features to provide a place where citizens of all abilities and ages can gather for play and recreation. Located at the Milwaukee County-owned Wisconsin Avenue Park in Wauwatosa, it also represents an impressive collaboration between TAC, the county parks department, and local philanthropy.

The Herzfeld Foundation is proud to have been one of Moss Universal Park’s earliest supporters, with a $150,000 grant approved by our board last year. Now that the groundbreaking has occurred, we can’t wait for Phase I of the project to be completed within the next year or so!

09/22/2026

The Herzfeld Foundation supports more than 50 nonprofits each year with grants for general operations or specific programs. Yet the portion of our grantmaking budget that typically receives the most attention is the chunk dedicated to capital projects, largely because of the size of some of our capital grants.

Generally, we only consider capital gifts for organizations we have supported in the past that show how proposed physical improvements will enhance their mission, fortify their finances, and offer new opportunities for Milwaukee residents.

We have awarded four capital gifts so far this year, including two that exceed $1 million, and our board will be considering three more next month. One of our recent approvals was a $125,000 grant to the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music to help finance its new community music space in Bronzeville. We have supported WCM’s music education activities for years; this expansion will enhance its mission by providing easier access to lessons and programming for central city residents, and it will serve the dual purpose of enriching the neighborhood as part of the new Bronzeville Arts & Technology Hub.

09/17/2026

We were excited to attend the Legal Aid MKE's annual luncheon last week, which celebrated the organization’s 110th anniversary. Legal Aid provides critical legal services at no cost to more than 6,000 low-income individuals each year who otherwise would not have access to legal representation. Key areas of service include housing security, consumer protection, and immigration.

We were proud to provide a civic improvement grant to the Legal Aid Society last year to support its Eviction Free MKE program, which was launched in 2021 to help residents navigate the eviction process while advocating for fair housing practices. The program served more than 2,000 individuals in the last grant period and we look forward to considering another request to support it at our 4th quarter board meeting in December.

09/15/2026

Our friends and colleagues at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation organize a couple of happy hour events each year to promote connections and camaraderie among foundation staff in Milwaukee. These events are both fun and professionally valuable, as they allow those who work in the philanthropic sector to get to know each other and compare notes.

Sponsorship for each event rotates among the various foundation participants, and we were happy to host the most recent happy hour in early September at The Edison in the 3rd Ward. We express our sincere thanks to GMF for taking on organizational responsibilities and to all of our foundation colleagues who were able to join us!

09/10/2026

Many of our social media posts in recent weeks have focused on the arts and early childhood education, which are our top two priority areas of giving. We have provided nearly $1.8 million so far this year to our “bedrock” grantees in these areas and to dozens of mostly smaller arts, culture, and arts education organizations and projects.

We also preserve a smaller portion of our grants budget for organizations engaged in civic improvements. These grants generally are intended for organizations and initiatives that add to the quality of life in the city of Milwaukee, promote civic engagement, or tackle difficult societal or policy challenges. Applications are invited by our staff.

We have provided three civic improvement grants this year and our board will be considering an additional five such grants at our 3rd quarter meeting. One of those – which is highlighted in the photo below – helped bridge a funding gap for the local chapter of the Girl Scouts of America for a trip that brought more than 40 girls from Milwaukee to Washington, DC., for several days of educational activities. More information on our civic improvement grants can be found at our website.

Address

219 N Milwaukee Street, 7th Floor
Milwaukee, WI
53202

Website

https://www.herzfeldfoundation.org/

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