Greater Milwaukee Foundation to focus on promoting racial equity and inclusion across the area

Armed with the results of ambitious data-gathering, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation plans to focus on promoting racial equity and inclusion across the area.

The foundation, which last year made $35 million in grants, isn't yet ready to speak in detail about its plans.

But with its second set of a broad array of statistical indicators in hand, the organization has become convinced that the area's prosperity depends on addressing the profound gap between white and minority well-being.

"You're just not going to thrive as a region if you have these continuing racial disparities," said Marcus White, the foundation's vice president of civic engagement.

The disparities — long-standing and well-known — are reiterated in detail in the latest edition of "Vital Signs," the foundation's every-other-year comparison of metropolitan Milwaukee with 15 other metro areas. The foundation chose the group to include both peer regions and areas "having characteristics that other communities emulate."

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