Milwaukee nonprofit Greater Together has announced a challenge to Milwaukee's creative industry to hire at least 1,600 minority employees by 2030. The project, called Greater Equity 2030, will be in part led by Ken Hanson, who founded Greater Together to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
The initiative will team up with Milwaukee Public Schools to organize summer internship programs for historically underrepresented groups.
"When I think of design, I think about a kind of optimism about the future," Hansen says. "You can't design something with cynicism. You have to design something with optimism."
Hanson, a retired advertising executive, says he has a broad definition of design: "changing the course of anything for the better." He began having an awakening when attending conferences and noticing that among the 500 people in the room, there were only three people of color.
The launch of the program is Wednesday at 88Nine Radio Milwaukee from 5:30-7:30 p.m. There will be a panel on racial disparity in the creative workforce.