Rotary Club of Milwaukee Tuesday Speaker Series

From Sustainability to Survivability: Managing Uncertainty Amid Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the nonprofit sector as it has all our lives.  The organizations we depend on to serve the most vulnerable, educate our youth, enrich our lives and build stronger communities are in jeopardy.  However, there are steps leaders can take to increase the likelihood of success amid these challenging times. This session will explain these principles, balancing the sense of urgency with feelings of empowerment, leaving nonprofit employees, board members, and volunteers with action steps to share with their favorite organizations to help them survive and, ultimately, thrive.

“Tolkien & Lewis”

On a dreary September evening in 1931, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their friend and fellow scholar, Hugo Dyson, met for dinner in Lewis’s Magdalen College dormitory in Oxford, England.  More than eight hours later, Lewis emerged a changed man. His transformation from atheist to theist to Christian was based on the insights of Tolkien and Dyson as they engaged in deep conversation about mythology, reality, ritual, imagination and faith. Tolkien and Lewis went on to become two of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century. The outcome of the discussion and related ideas and insights appear in their fictional work and in many of their non-fiction essays.

This one-hour public television film digs into the topics that Tolkien and Lewis may have discussed on that September evening. Because Lewis likely argued against Tolkien and Dyson for much of the evening, the film engages scholars from various spiritual and academic viewpoints while challenging viewers to draw their own conclusions about the meaning of life and the role that mythology and imagination play in determining belief.

Just how local is a local filmmaker? Milwaukee’s Chip Duncan and his colleagues at The Duncan Entertainment Group are celebrating 35 years of international production with distribution outlets that include PBS, HBO, CBS, Lifetime, and Discovery – among others. The Duncan Entertainment team is responsible for more than forty long form productions created in over forty countries around the world.  Duncan is also a noted author and still photographer with recent publications that include the short story collection HALF A REASON TO DIE (Select Books, NYC, 2017) and the coffee table photography book INSPIRING CHANGE (2019). Duncan’s photographic work has been displayed at the Council on Foreign Relations (NYC), the O Street Museum (Washington DC), the World Peace Festival (Berlin), the Kenosha Public Museum, Milwaukee’s Charles Allis Museum, and is part of numerous private collections.  For more information, please visit www.DuncanEntertainment.com.

Coronavirus, What do we know, where are we now, and where might we go? 

Coronavirus is suddenly upon us.  How did we get here?  What do we know for sure?  Where might we be headed?  How will this end?  And what can I do to protect my family and business?

Dr. Bob Gleeson has studied pandemics professionally for Northwestern Mutual and personally for 25 years.  He shared his learned insights and governmental guidelines for care.

Click here to view Dr. Gleeson's slides.

This is a joint program with the Milwaukee Press Club.

Reclaiming Agency: Cultivating a Culture of Regeneration in Life

The culture we’re immersed in, and how we inhabit spaces today are based on an old story about the strategy for social change. We are all working hard today to be catalysts for change, as many worked for many year in the past, and still things seem to be getting worse. Many aspects of today’s reality need urgent action, such as climate change. In my view, climate change is not the problem. We, the people, are who and what needs to change. This talk is about exploring, understanding and moving towards a more useful and regenerative response to life, (where we are creative, connected, full of energy and excited about Life); rather than the current reactive and ‘fear’ based one that leads to separation, disconnection and a ‘dead-end’ kind of experience of BE-ingness in life. With ‘expandedness’ in the life experience, we feel more alive and are better able to ‘dance with’ life issues within and out there!

“Toward a More Inclusive Rotary”

Xavier Ramey (Maywood Proviso Rotary, District 6450) will provide a keynote on the topic of Rotary International’s new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement, and how he feels it may impact clubs, charitable giving, social equity, and interpersonal engagement. He will specifically look at ways that racial minorities in the Chicagoland area have been challenging and confronting issues within Rotary Clubs and provide several tactics for attendees (particularly Rotarians) to consider.  Although this is addressed to Rotary Clubs, you are sure to leave with a new idea or two that you can use at home, work or any organization with whom you are involved.

Xavier Ramey is the CEO of Justice Informed, a nationally-reaching social impact consulting firm based in Chicago, IL. He is also an award-winning social strategist, noted public speaker, and a conflict mediator who has a background in economics and social impact. Xavier has served as the lead of the Social Innovation and Philanthropy Strategy at the University of Chicago, managed multi-million dollar philanthropic portfolios, and led million-dollar fundraising campaigns for nonprofits. He is a founding member of the Black Lives Matter-aligned #LetUsBreathe Collective. Xavier is a Rotarian in the Maywood Proviso Rotary Club, located in Maywood, IL. Xavier was a mainstage presenter at the Rotary Presidential Peacebuilding Conference in Chicago, IL in May of 2018, and shared the stage with international speakers at the RI International Conference in Toronto, Canada in June 2018. He is a dynamic speaker with a strong ability to assess how we can move forward in positive ways, as evidenced in his speech to the Rotary International Convention (click here to hear the speech). Learn more about his work by visiting www.xavierramey.com, www.justiceinformed, or on LinkedIn. 

How to Outsmart the Talent Shortage

ManpowerGroup Chairman & CEO Jonas Prising led a fast-paced review of trends impacting the Future of Work and practical takeaways from the World Economic Forum Annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland last month. Jonas shared key challenges on CEO’s minds as well as insights from ManpowerGroup’s latest global research on Talent Shortage and What Workers Want with data from 40,000 employers and 14,000 workers across 15 countries. As the pace of disruption accelerates, helping people adapt for future jobs and companies become creators of talent has never been more important. Jonas outlined why skills are the passport to growth and resilience for organizations and individuals how companies can create a culture of learning and build talent.

Click here to view his PowerPoint presentation.

Rotarians’ Growing Collaboration to End Malaria

Jeff Pritchard, Board Chair of Rotarian Malaria Partners, will provide an update on the malaria elimination campaign and describe several ground-breaking projects where Rotarians are saving lives and reclaiming lost productivity. Malaria has killed more humans than any other disease and remains a deadly menace for nearly 2 billion of the world’s population.  In highly endemic regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, Rotarians have been playing a growing role in efforts to eliminate this disease.

John Austin, a Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution, will talk about his recent report: “As the venture capital game gets bigger, the Midwest keeps missing out.”

According to the report, those working to accelerate economic growth in the Heartland must face some stark realities. The Great Lakes region continues to export wealth to coastal economies, even as investment leaders try to equalize growth between the coasts and the Heartland. The region sees only a tiny fraction of venture capital (VC) deals, despite producing one quarter to one third of the nation’s research and development, new patents, and top talent. Great Lakes VC funds are currently seen as too small or too unknown for investors—at a time when VC is funding fewer firms with bigger exits.

Move Forward MKE

Local governments in Milwaukee County, business leaders, and concerned citizens have come together to advance a solution to the fiscal challenges municipal and county governments face.  Move Forward MKE is an effort to have the Wisconsin legislature authorize a one percent, local-option sales tax – a tax that would go into effect if approved in a referendum.

Mayor Tom Barrett will share his perspective on the effort.  His 2020 city budget confronted a stark fiscal reality that required a reduction in the sworn strength of the Milwaukee Police Department by dozens of officers.  He will provide an update on Move Forward MKE, its prospects in the state legislature, and how passage might change local governments’ fiscal situations.

WI Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan discussed the first year of Governor Tony Evers’ administration. In addition to highlighting the work from 2019, he shared insights from the January 22nd State of the State Address and what to expect for 2020.