Embracing New Horizons: Sunsetting the Past to Illuminate a Brighter Future

2025 Annual Report

"Every sunset is a reset button in disguise; push it with intention." -Unknown

Dear Friends and Supporters,

As we reflect on the past year, I am filled with immense gratitude and optimism. We embarked on a transformative journey at the African American Roundtable. 2025 was one of profound change and growth, marked by resilience, innovation, and a steadfast commitment to our mission of organizing, nurturing, and transforming Black leaders to build power in service of Black liberation.

Last year was a pivotal year for our organization. We sunset our LiberateMKE campaign. We grew our Membership program to the largest its ever been and invited them into our strategic planning. We significantly ramped up our efforts to engage Milwaukee’s youth and worked to provide them with protected space where they can be the change they want to see.

There is more to learn. We are open. And thankful for the ongoing journey.

As we embrace new horizons, I invite you to join us in our continued journey toward a future rooted in liberation, justice and love. Together, we can make our vision of being a joyful, political home for Black people to thrive in liberated, interconnected communities a reality. Here's to a year of transformation and the endless possibilities that lie ahead.

Until victory,

Markasa Tucker-Harris, Executive Director

About Us

Our Mission
The African American Roundtable (AART) organizes, nurtures, and transforms Black leaders to build power in service of Black liberation.

Our Vision
AART is a joyful, political home for Black people to thrive in liberated, interconnected communities.

Our Values
Authentic Relationships

Liberation

Love

Organization

Community

Transformation

Our Budget

The 2025 fundraising landscape proved to be particularly challenging, largely due to the prevailing political climate under the current administration. The administration's policies and budgetary priorities led to increased financial uncertainty for many of our traditional supporters, impacting philanthropic giving. Despite these obstacles, our organization remained resilient, adapting our fundraising strategies to engage donors and business and organization sponsorships more effectively and emphasize the critical importance of our mission of advocating for Black Liberation during these tumultuous times.

- Foundations: $ 1,305,600
- Donors, Individuals and Businesses: $37,139
- Membership: $ 3,298
- Miscellaneous Funding: $5,775
- Staff Salaries, benefits, Self-care Stipends & Insurance: $625,687
- Leadership Development, Programs & Member Stipends: $66,850
- Community Giving: $8,500
- Marketing, Branding, Outreach & Printing: $22,711
- Staff Professional Development, Conferences, & Trainings: $42,697
- Office Expenses & Infrastructure: $59,219
- Professional & Fiscal Fees: $ 250,636
- Independent Contractors: $ 50,410
- Travel: $12,753
- Other Expenses and Miscellaneous Fees: $17,979

Notable Highlights

In April 2025, we won participatory budgeting for Milwaukee residents. After rallying for this for more than five years, residents will finally get a chance to have a say in how these public funds are spent and use these funds to improve community safety.
Staff, board and members did extensive work in 2025 to develop AART’s 2026-2028 strategic plan focusing on strengthening our organizing, communications, members, internal systems, infrastructure, campaign development and more.

AART gathered with 115 community members for our annual fundraiser. We were able to exceed our goal and raise nearly $21,500 with help from 22 sponsors and underwriters and over 90 donors. We graciously thank everyone who contributed!

Our Membership program has been rapidly expanding, and by the end of 2025, we had over 100 members. We set even more ambitious goals to continue to grow this program over the next three years.

In 2025, AART launched its Activists in Residence (AiR) program with four fellows. The program offers abolitionist campaign organizing skills and leadership development. Our lead fellow Sierra supported the effort.

We sunset our LiberateMKE campaign after five years of organizing. This campaign helped divest $4 million from police and invest resources into community programs like housing, libraries, lead prevention and youth opportunities.

A Year in Photos

Community Impact

AART believes in community care and the importance of supporting our neighbors. In 2025, we gave away $8,500 to Milwaukee organizations and individuals.

Here are the people we gave to in 2025:

Golda Meir High School
Brentwood Church of Christ
First Day Fits
Fathers Making Progress
HYFIN
Elle Halo
Neighborhood Family Fellowship and Dream Team United
Zion Rogers
Vaun Mayes - RBGiftmus
AART members and individual community members

Program Success

Membership & Campaign

Membership

In 2025, we hosted our annual Membership Convening with 45 members.
We also hosted a four-part Conflict Transformation series that trained 15 members in conflict skills.
We added nearly 40 new members, including 10 youth members, and ended 2025 with 106 members.

LiberateMKE

We sunset our LiberateMKE campaign in 2025. Our wins include:
- Divesting almost $4 million from Milwaukee police.
- Investing resources into housing, libraries, lead prevention and summer opportunities for young people.
- Taught residents how to participate in the city’s budget processes and launched a toolkit that residents could use year after year.

Participatory Budgeting

In April 2025, we won Participatory Budgeting (PB) for Milwaukee residents. The Common Council established the “MKE Community Impact Fund” which will allow residents the opportunity to propose, vote on and implement community projects close to $600,000.
We recruited six members leaders to track the implementation of this process. Since then, we have met with elected officials, hosted community education meetings with

Base Building

NWS Trainings, Storytelling and Campaigning

Trained community members on power, AART's organizing science, base building and campaign development skills, and how to make consensus-based decisions, including 11 Northwest Campaign Cohort Leaders, over 70 residents, and many AART members.
Developed the campaign plan for AART's Northwest SIde Food Access Campaign launching in May 2026.
Published four Northwest Side Stories about the development of our food access campaign featuring a Northwest Side Cohort Leader Delicia Morris.

Northwest Side Asset Map

Fostered new relationships with 10 assets from the map:
- The Neighborhood Kitchen
- Nigerian Community & Conference Center in Milwaukee (NCiM)
- Adom African Market
- Wellpoint Care Network
- Nourish MKE
- J&S African Center
Deepened existing relationships with 10 assets:
- We Locked In/ComForce
- PilotSmith
- Brentwood Church of Christ
- MERA (Monitor Engage Recommend Advocate)
- Havenwoods Neighborhood Partnership
- Began connecting with new potential assets to the map and other existing assets, including a farmer, local gardens, churches, a neighborhood center, a dentist's office, a food pantry, a locally-owned Asian market, and a locally-owned grocery store!

Youth Organizing

Activists in Residence (AiR) Fellowship

In 2025, we launched our Activists in Residence Fellowship. Through this fellowship, we trained and supported five youth leaders who engaged in political education, community organizing skill-building, and hands-on event planning. Fellows deepened their understanding of local power structures, developed facilitation and outreach skills, and strengthened their ability to mobilize their peers around issues impacting their communities. Beyond training, the fellowship created a space for relationship building and mentorship—laying a strong foundation for sustained youth-led advocacy at AART.

Youth Membership Program

We also formally launched our Youth Membership program, creating a more structured pathway for young people to plug into our work. As a result, we welcomed 10 new youth members this year. These young leaders have begun participating in AART’s Youth Hangouts and Bi-Monthly Skillups.

Youth Fundraising

In addition, we secured $5,000 in donations to directly support our youth organizing efforts. These funds are being invested in leadership stipends, training materials, event costs, and member engagement activities.

Programs & Logistics

The Milwaukee of Our Dreams

In 2023 we developed a space to imagine, plan and collaborate on, membership, community program and campaign events. We call it the “Dream Space,” inspired by Tricia Hersey and her Rest Is Resistance movement. Dream Spaces have become an integral part in developing our systems of care, coordination and organizing people into the infrastructure of our political home. In 2025, youth and adult members dreamt with staff in six Dream Spaces. With this extension of our base, we explored the depth of our NWS Stories, the direction of our Youth Membership, and the vision of our annual community gathering and fundraiser, where we officially sunset our LiberateMKE campaign.
Tricia Hersey said, “Daydreaming is a form of rest.” Organizing our community members, resources and city officials demands our full capacity. We dream of a thriving Milwaukee, and the rest from those dreams energize and activate us. Curating space for imagination and visioning with our Northwest Side community illuminated a desire for a fresh food access campaign. Our roadmap to liberation encompasses innovation, presence for listening and trust in our community’s collective wisdom. Dreaming has enlightened AART’s strategies, systems of care and community impact through our community offerings. We’re dreaming bigger in 2026. Will you join us?

Field Engagement

Canvass Program Highlights

AART launched a full Canvass Program in June 2025.
We knocked on 1,200 doors and made real connections.
We encouraged over 160 neighbors to imagine what a safe and thriving Northwest Side looks (NWS) like.
Eight of our neighbors joined an event or attended an introduction meeting with our leaders.
A total of 56 canvass shifts were completed with members leading the charge.
Our texting program engaged 3,260 contacts throughout the year, sending over 40,000 texts in 2025.

Community Outreach & Impact

The Wisconsin Civic Power Table presented AART with a Partner Spotlight Award in recognition of our year-round field efforts.
We were featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which included an in-field interview with a NWS resident sharing thoughts on food insecurity as we prepare to launch our NWS food access campaign.

Comms & Digital

AART in the Media

AART had 18 media hits in 2025, including one national story and one international story. Our national piece, From Police Reform to Abolition: What We’ve Learned in the Last Five Years, was published in The Forge and explored critical learnings from our journey. Our international piece, published in The Guardian, highlighted the wins associated with our LiberatedMKE campaign.

AART Online

AART launched five digital campaigns in 2025, including participatory budgeting, the sunset of LiberateMKE, youth membership, Northwest Side Stories and organizational. We had 18,067 website pageviews and 10,304 followers across all social media platforms by the end of 2025.

Building Narrative Power

Through media, campaigns and trainings, we continued to build narrative power in 2025, training youth, members and our neighbors on how to tell their stories related to community safety, food access, youth-related issues, participatory budgeting and more.