GREAT LAKES URBAN EMPOWERMENT CENTER · CONNECT. CURATE. CATALYZE.
Building Black and Brown Futures Across Great Lakes Cities
GLUE is a regional platform for strategy and collective action, linking leaders and communities across Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Gary. For two decades we have worked by one method: connect the people who should be working together, curate what they need to know, and catalyze action that changes institutions.
5 of the bottom 6
Of the nation's 50 largest metros, five of the six ranked lowest for African American well-being are Great Lakes cities: Milwaukee, Cleveland, Buffalo, Chicago, and Detroit. It was true in 2020 and again in 2024. GLUE named all five as its focus in 2008.
Source: Marc V. Levine, The AALAM/UWMCED Index of African American Well-Being in the Nation's Largest Metropolitan Areas, 2020 and 2024 editions, UW-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development
Of the nation's 50 largest metros, five of the six ranked lowest for African American well-being are Great Lakes cities: Milwaukee, Cleveland, Buffalo, Chicago, and Detroit. It was true in 2020 and again in 2024. GLUE named all five as its focus in 2008.
Source: Marc V. Levine, The AALAM/UWMCED Index of African American Well-Being in the Nation's Largest Metropolitan Areas, 2020 and 2024 editions, UW-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development
The GLUE Framework
Three disciplines. One theory of change.
Connect.
Civic power begins with relationship, not roster size. We bring the air and the ground into one room: institutions, research, and resources alongside the people living the problem.
Curate.
The right voices, ideas, and data are rarely in the same room. We scan the ecosystem across the Great Lakes, then select, publish, and distribute what people need to act, so information stops being segregated.
Catalyze.
The purpose of the method is motion. We move the people and institutions already positioned to act, help them, and hold them to it.
Each discipline adds its own value. GLUE does not seek to own the work. It seeks to be catalytic, increasing impact where it matters most.
Get the one-page GLUE Framework
Outcomes
What GLUE Produces
People
Leaders better informed and better equipped
Partners
Collaborations across organizations that didn’t work together before
Publishing
Research and data put where decision-makers can use it
Projects
Initiatives with measurable impact
Policies
Proposed and adopted changes in law and institutional rules
Procedures
Durable ways of working that outlast any one leader
Work With GLUE
Bring GLUE to your work.
GLUE works with institutions, coalitions, congregations, and funders that want Black and Brown communities in Great Lakes cities to see measurable change.
Convening and Facilitation
We design and run convenings that put institutions and community at the same table, and keep them there.
Backbone Support
Shared agenda, data, and steering for coalitions and collective impact efforts.
Strategy and Advisory
Counsel for boards, executives, and funders on strategy in Great Lakes cities.
Governance, Justice, and Accountability
Board and governance work, and principled engagement with the institutions that shape community life.
Research and Publishing
Briefs, reports, and civic intelligence that put the right information in the right hands.
Speaking and Workshops
Keynotes and working sessions on the GLUE Framework, leadership, change management, segregated information, and breaking down silos.
Every engagement starts with a conversation.
The GLUE Network
Organizations and coalitions built and led using the GLUE Framework.
Clients and Funders
Mental Health America of Wisconsin
Medical College of Wisconsin
Housing Ministries of American Baptist Churches of Wisconsin
Milwaukee Mental Health Task Force
Obama Foundation
Mental Health America of Wisconsin Medical College of Wisconsin Housing Ministries of American Baptist Churches of Wisconsin Milwaukee Mental Health Task Force Obama Foundation
The Framework at Work
MIRACLE Mental Health Network
From a church basement in 2012 to a federal grant partner: fourteen years of faith and mental health work.
Read the caseMy Brother’s Keeper Milwaukee (MBK)
How a backbone kept the work when the institutions let go. In partnership with the Obama Foundation.
Read the caseBlack Men Organizing (BMO)
From 50 men in a church basement to a 438-person network that keeps meeting.
Read the caseSports Education Society
Student-athletes, families, and the sports industry in one room, a decade before GLUE.
Read the case