News Room

• Speaker’s bureau serves Milwaukee groups for a decade – Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service

  March 3, 2026

  

  A pro bono speaker’s bureau in Milwaukee is proving that the best things in life, and the best education for local groups, are still free. Free Speakers Milwaukee is officially celebrating its 10th anniversary running a pro bono speaker’s bureau. Free Speakers MKE provides speakers to Milwaukee area community groups at no cost. (more…)

• A decade of community service – Milwaukee’s pro bono speaker’s bureau celebrates 10th anniversary

  January 13, 2026

  MILWAUKEE, WI —Celebrating a decade of community impact, Free Speakers Milwaukee is marking its 10th anniversary as Milwaukee’s source for pro bono education and professional-quality presentations. Since its local debut, the speaker’s bureau has stayed true to the belief that the best community education should be accessible to all, providing local groups with speakers at no cost.

  The Milwaukee bureau holds a unique position in the organization’s legacy, having launched on January 7, 2016, as the very first expansion city for the pro bono community service project. What began as a Chicago-based initiative has since flourished into a national network, with Milwaukee serving as the blueprint for growth into seven major cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington D.C., and Phoenix.

  Since Milwaukee debut a decade ago, the bureau has fulfilled 611 requests for speakers from local community groups in MKE. Today, the Milwaukee bureau features 35 active speakers covering a vast array of topics ranging from history and health to business and personal development.

  (more…)

• Volunteering Through Public Speaking – Biz Connection Radio Show

  June 30, 2016

  Andy Richardson, director of Free Speakers Milwaukee joined Jim Rosetti and Ron Nielsen, hosts of the Biz Connection, a weekly radio show. Richardson illustrates how volunteering one’s gift of public speaking pro bono through a site like FreeSpeakers.org can open the door for new business relationships. The speakers are not doing a “sales pitch” for their products or services but actually sharing valuable and informative content to groups or organizations. This positions the speaker as having expertise they are willing to share free of charge, thus making people more prone to know, like, and trust them. (more…)

• ‘Cheap talk’ for Milwaukee clubs and groups

  January 22, 2016

  FreeSpeakers.org, a pro bono speaker’s bureau, is a new resource in Milwaukee for groups and organizations that need speakers. The new bureau has 20 local speakers with more than 35 different topics available.

  “All speakers present programs at no cost,” said Andy Richardson, director of FreeSpeakers.org. “This is a community service project that is 100 percent free to groups that have limited (or no) budgets. Groups include Chambers of Commerce, libraries, Rotary and Kiwanis groups, special interest clubs, church groups, retirement communities, women’s clubs, men’s clubs, etc. (more…)

• Free Speakers Bureau Matches Speakers to Groups

  October 14, 2015

  What started with a single telephone call 15 years ago has grown into something that Free Speech Speakers Bureau founder Ginny Richardson of Burr Ridge could never have imagined.

  Richardson, founder and president of Ginny Richardson Public Relations in Hinsdale, received a phone call one day from a local Rotary Club. The club wanted a speaker for an upcoming meeting, and turned to Richardson and her connections in the community for help.

  “I made a few phone calls,” she said, and found a local banker willing to take on the job, free of charge. (more…)