# Children's Wisconsin Foundation

Children's Wisconsin Foundation is an Endowment / Foundation based in Milwaukee, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** Milwaukee, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** 999 N 92nd St, Suite 220, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States
- **Founded:** 1984
- **Assets under management:** $1.2B (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** giving.childrenswi.org

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Children's Wisconsin Foundation was established in 1984 as the philanthropic engine of the Milwaukee-based pediatric health system. Linda Benfield, a Foley & Lardner managing partner, leads a board stacked with Wisconsin investment and operating heavyweights: Ted Kellner of Fiduciary Management Inc., Mary Ellen Stanek of Baird Advisors, Austin Ramirez of Husco, John Donofrio of Johnson Controls, and Jon D. Hammes of Hammes Company. The Foundation converts donor gifts — $49.3 million in 2025, dominated by individuals and family foundations at $34 million — into sustaining capital for the state's largest pediatric provider. The Foundation manages an endowment estimated at $1.2 billion (Altss estimate), allocating across venture capital, buyouts, growth equity, expansion-stage, and fund-of-funds commitments. It participates across the full company lifecycle, from seed and early-stage venture through late-stage expansion, with discrete exposure to the Caribbean. The capital serves two masters: the Children's Wisconsin main campus in Wauwatosa and a statewide network of primary-care, urgent-care, and school-based clinics. Beyond the $1.2 billion endowment, the Foundation operates adjacent fundraising vehicles including the Heroes Giving Society, the Guardian Society for planned gifts, and endowed-chair programs that attract corporate spotlights. The Children's Research Institute, housed within the system, runs more than 1,000 active clinical trials — an unusual concentration of pediatric research in the upper Midwest. Board members concurrently hold seats on the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and the Greater Milwaukee Committee, embedding the Foundation within the region's capital-allocation and policy ecosystem. The Foundation raised $49,278,527 in 2025 gifts to fund research, critical care, and community health. The Foundation's structural differentiator is its hybrid design: an endowed hospital foundation that invests like a sophisticated multi-asset allocator while dispensing like a community-health grantmaker. Board composition — mixing asset-management founders, a public-company GC, and a healthcare-manufacturing CEO — provides sourcing across venture, credit, and real assets that most stand-alone hospital endowments cannot replicate. That governance architecture lets the Foundation target risk-adjusted returns that insulate its $49-million annual grant program from Wisconsin Medicaid and commercial-payer volatility.

## Sectors

- Healthcare Services
- Venture (General)
- Fund of Funds
- Buyout

## Offices

- Neenah, WI

## People

- Linda Benfield — Chair of the Board
- Ted Kellner — Board Member
- Mary Ellen Stanek — Board Member
- Austin Ramirez — Board Member
- John Donofrio — Board Member
- Jon D. Hammes — Board Member

## Questions

### How does the Foundation source its venture and private-market investments?

The Foundation discloses a multi-strategy allocation spanning venture, buyout, growth, and fund-of-funds, but does not publish a portfolio list. The board's overlapping directorships with Milwaukee's private-capital community — Kellner's FMI, Stanek's Baird platform, Hammes's healthcare real estate — create natural sourcing for direct and fund commitments.

### Is the Foundation a single asset pool or does it operate through multiple entities?

The endowment is managed under the Children's Wisconsin Foundation, which also runs philanthropic channels including the Heroes Giving Society, Guardian Society for planned gifts, and endowed-chair programs. The Children's Research Institute functions as a separate research arm with more than 1,000 active clinical trials, funded in part by Foundation grants.

### Which sectors does the Foundation explicitly avoid?

The Foundation does not publish exclusionary screens. Its mission alignment — pediatric health, mental and behavioral health, and community-based primary care — makes direct investment in sectors counter to those goals unlikely, but no stated prohibitions exist.

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Last updated: 2026-08-11T02:43:31.692Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/childrens-wisconsin-foundation

Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology