PB Crew, It’s Time to Pull Up: Our Dollars, Our Vote, Our Milwaukee
By Elle Halo
PB Crew, we’re back! We’re talking about $600,000 and real community power.
If you’re new here, Participatory Budgeting (PB) is giving diverse communities leverage in deciding how funding is spent by helping to decide how public money gets spent. Residents bring ideas, develop proposals, and ultimately vote on what gets funded. Instead of somebody sitting behind closed doors deciding what they think our neighborhoods need, PB asks the revolutionary question: What if we asked the people who actually live here?
Milwaukee’s MKE Community Impact Fund is a real local opportunity for funding that can create sustainability, open new opportunities and bring communities together around projects focused on community safety. This $600,000 victory grew out of years of organizing, including AART’s #LiberateMKE campaign.
And now comes the part where we have to protect what we fought for. We need your support to see this process the way through.
We all know how funding processes tend to work at almost every level: local, state, federal, artistic, educational, community-based or philanthropic. Decisions can happen behind closed doors with limited community buy-in. We’ve watched incredible organizations doing transformative work struggle for resources while funding sometimes lands with organizations that have bigger branding and marketing channels or lack impact, or a proven track record. I’ve studied grant writing strategy, and one thing I know is that community impact cannot always be quantified through statistics, or in rigid grantmaking processes.
That is why this process matters. We want our Black, Brown and QTPOC organizations that have been doing the work without adequate resources to have a real opportunity to build and grow. I want new leaders and young people organizing, developing ideas and having a voice in how funding is allocated. We want organizations collaborating and peer-reviewing each other’s proposal ideas, because steel sharpens steel. That way the MKE Community Impact committee members won’t have to perform the “Oppression Olympics” to decide who gets what, when our communities are already sidelined, and marginalized.
When we get to the proposal submission stage, we will be confident as a community that those tapped into this grantmaking process will win, because they will be the best possible ideas and proposals because our community already knows what we want, need and deserve.
This can be an opportunity to repair harm, plant something beautiful and give something bigger the chance to grow.
Here are the latest PB updates.
The City has launched a new MKE Community Impact Committee webpage, and the Committee has established three work groups: Eligible Projects & Proposals, Community Building & Outreach, and Rulebook & Online Organization. The Committee is currently working toward a November 1, 2026 deadline to deliver a proposed program structure, rulebook and methodology for accepting community proposals to the Common Council.
MKE Community Impact Committee
But a website and work groups alone do not make something participatory.
We are lifting concerns to the Committee about transparency, accountability, accessibility, community engagement, proposal standards and making sure Milwaukee residents have meaningful power all the way through the final vote. We want clear timelines, accountability for recipients, a locally based Milwaukee Project Consultant, strong local implementation support and a process where the communities most affected can determine what safety looks like for themselves.
We’ve also asked the Steering Committee to consider support from the Participatory Budgeting Project, whose new digital PB Handbook provides step-by-step guidance on designing the process, collecting ideas, developing proposals, voting and implementation. Their guidance emphasizes grassroots leadership, inclusive design, equity criteria and intentional community outreach.
Participatory Budgeting Project PB Handbook
And Our PB Crew is pulling up, and asking you to join us. September 22 is the next meeting, and we intend to make sure community concerns are heard. Because from #LiberateMKE to #FeedTheChangeMKE and the fight against growing food insecurity, the message remains connected: food is safety, housing is safety, opportunity is safety, community is safety.
Join us by taking action with AART. Be a PB voter to get updates on the PB process.
Join us on September 22 for the call to action when we pull up to the city. https://bit.ly/OurDollarsAction
Email Chris Lee at clee@milwaukee.gov with the city if you’re interested in joining either of the three work groups
Lastly I want to thank the African American Roundtable for so much support and memories over the last five years. I’m grateful and excited to announce that I have now become a member of AART’s Board of Directors! It’s an honor, and I am so hopeful for us to build power for Milwaukee’s Northwest Side, Black residents, youth, and the inclusivity of our QTPOC community as well!
This is our money. This is our Milwaukee. And these are truly Our Dollars! OUR VOTE!
Resources:
MKE Community Impact Committee
AART Participatory Budgeting hub
Elle Halo is a member, PB leader and Board Member for the African American Roundtable.
