When the Milwaukee chapter of the I Have a Dream Foundation (IHAD–MKE) launched in 2007 with its first cohort of students – first graders at Clarke Street School – its focus was primarily on ensuring the low income students had the money and scholastic supports they needed to pursue a university or technical college degree.

Sixteen years later, the program has a new group of students, new leadership, and a more all-encompassing approach to its mission – one with a greater focus on supporting the families of the students it serves.

With the students in the first cohort now mostly all graduated from some form of post-secondary institution, the nonprofit began serving a new group of students last fall at Milwaukee Academy of Science thanks to a $4 million fundraising campaign launched last year by IHDF national board member Barry Mandel and IHDF-MKE board chair and Legacy Bank founder Margaret Henningsen.

So far, the nonprofit has raised about $1.7 million of that goal, with $500,000 of those funds earmarked for post-secondary scholarships for the 90 students in its new cohort. The remaining $1.2 million has been allocated for staffing and services. Donors to the effort have included Barry Mandel, Brewers Community Foundation, Old National Bank, and Kohl Philanthropies.

One of about half a dozen local IHDF chapters across the country, IHDF-MKE provides individualized social, emotional, and academic support to students from low income communities from kindergarten through college, along with guaranteed tuition support. The program’s goal is to keep students and families together as a cohort for at least 12 years. It also provides up to $10,000 of tuition assistance for students.

Expanded services

While IHDF-MKE had the goal of supporting student families from its inception, the new funding, has and will allow the nonprofit to hire the staffing necessary to truly put that mission into motion, explained Dan Schiller, the nonprofit’s new executive director.

Hired to lead IHDF-MKE in September, Schiller has spent the last 17 years working for local youth and family services organizations. In his last role, he served as executive director for the PEAK Initiative, a nonprofit that partners with Milwaukee-area schools and serves hundreds of students through summer camp experiences, after-school, school-day and weekend programming aimed at bringing out the potential of young leaders in the community.

“I would say the program is similar in the sense that there are scholarship dollars committed for the students who are participants, but it’s really different in that there’s a lot more infrastructure to support students and families,” said Schiller of the new IHAD-MKE.