CREATIVE CORPS
Creative Corps
Creative Corps is a key component of Greater Equity 2030. It is an opportunity to begin to close the diversity gap within our creative industries, while creating a new resource of talent for businesses.
Building the pipeline
It is well accepted that the economic vitality of cities in the U.S. is sustained by the heartbeat of its creative culture. Unfortunately, we also know from our research that people of color are tragically underrepresented in Milwaukee’s creative occupations. Greater Together is working with the City of Milwaukee, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and Milwaukee Public Schools on this program.
Creative Corps has three dimensions
- An agency open house to expose young people to the breadth of your business.
- An annual visit to an MPS school from one of your employees or teams to share their passion.
- A seven-week paid summer internship facilitated by Greater Together and MPS focused on high school juniors and seniors. Interships will be supported, in part, by the City of Milwaukee.
Intern program goals
- A rewarding real-world experience
- Increased comfort in job situations
- An opportunity to explore career options
- A better understanding of where they’d like to go and how to get there
These internships will help students explore a broad range of creative and related business occupations and develop new communication abilities and team skills. The program will include a soft-skills orientation and regular mentor check-ins. These internships also provide an opportunity for the businesses to build a more welcoming culture.
And, very importantly, your staff will have the opportunity to share their passion and pride while making a real difference in the future of the intern.
Ultimately, this will open a line of communication between entry-level candidates and businesses.
Businesses will
- Assign a liaison to Greater Together
- Work toward recruitment, hiring and cultural best practices
- Sponsor an open house for students
- Visit a classroom
- Participate in annual strategy dialogue sessions to improve results and solve issues
- Participate in high school internship program
- Enable us to monitor and publish results annually
- Help support research, programming and staffing