The Sherman Park neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has a rich history of industry and civil rights achievements. It’s also where Renee Lindner, outreach specialist at Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation (WWBIC), spent her childhood. Her 83-year-old mom still lives in the same house where she raised her six children as a teacher and single mom.
Lindner remembers the neighborhood as a tight community in which families supported each other with their day-to-day needs. “Neighbors looked out for another,” she said. “It didn’t matter who you were or what you looked like—we were all in it together.” And they still do. Her mother’s neighbor, the former President of the Milwaukee Urban League, shovels snow in return for a batch of homemade cookies.
In her role at WWBIC, Lindner is helping neighbors in Sherman Park and surrounding neighborhoods access the capital and education they need to sustain their businesses.
The neighborhood has changed since Lindner was a kid; the A.O. Smith factory was a big employer before selling to new owners and shutting those plants down and moving to the suburbs in the 2000s.
But its spirit remains intact. “Different folks and different business owners look out for each other and if somebody needs something they’ll step up to be that person to go help out—whether it’s a business opening or a water flooding issue,” said Lindner.
WWBIC has helped anchor economies in neighborhoods around the Milwaukee area. The largest microlender in Wisconsin, their sector-agnostic loans have funded the launch of a nail salon, an empanada kitchen, and a bouquet of other Main Street-style enterprises.
African Americans make up 22 percent of their loan profile despite comprising just 7 percent of the state’s population. Six percent of Wisconsinites are Hispanic, but 13 percent of WWBIC’s loan portfolio is Hispanic.
Those ratios are intentional. “In each market, we concentrate as directed by our mission on women, people of global majority, people of lower wealth and incomes, and veterans and military families,” said Lindner. “All of these groups are likely to be disadvantaged and face barriers to realizing their entrepreneurial dreams—most often in accessing capital, business and professional networks, and higher education.”
They also provide business education, tools to help build financial wellness, and ongoing business support after loans have been distributed. Lindner wants to help them out much like Sherman Park neighbors help her family. “We really talk about a person as a whole,” said Lindner, referring to her clients. “This is one reason we were so glad to be part of UMA’s Pathways to Patient Capital program - to collaborate with organizations taking similar whole-entrepreneur approaches.”
This case study was co-authored by Mark Foggin and Johnny Magdaleno and originally published in 2020 as part of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance’s “Forging Fairness: How community-based lenders are centering both inclusion and manufacturing to promote equity [link to report].” This report highlights the work of practitioners in UMA’s Pathways to Patient Capital cohort, and approaches these leaders are taking to help entrepreneurs of color–including makers and manufacturers–get access to the capital and know-how they need to realize their business ideas and plans at scale.