Boys and Girls Clubs CEO Michael Johnson dead at 50

“Everybody's shocked and just heartbroken for his family,” said Taylor Jackson, who was named the organization’s acting CEO Monday. “The community has had an outpouring of support, and that means a lot.”

Jackson said she did not know Johnson’s cause of death but said the organization is moving forward with Johnson’s “legacy and vision.”

“He was always looking for the next bigger, better thing, not because what we were doing wasn't good enough for him, but he knew that he continued to build a team strong enough to do more,” she said.

In a brief statement forwarded by longtime friend Tim Metcalfe on Monday, Johnson’s family said they were heartbroken and asked for privacy.

“We are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support, and for so many people who have reached out with thoughts and prayers,” the statement said.

Johnson began at the Boys & Girls Clubs in 2010 but came to even greater prominence in the aftermath of the police shooting of Tony Robinson in Madison in 2015, when he often served as a mediator between members of Madison’s Black community and others anguished over the killing and Madison’s mostly white leaders.

Mary Burke was chair of the Boys & Girls Clubs board when Johnson was hired. Born into a poor family in a Chicago housing project, Johnson credited the Boys & Girls Clubs with keeping him out of trouble. When his mother died, he later said, it was the Boys & Girls Clubs that raised the money to bury her.

“He just had such positive energy and a warmth to him that you noticed immediately,” she said. “It was clear just the life experience — his own lived experience – would make him a great leader for the club. … He could connect with the stories of a lot of the kids that the club reaches.”

Barely a month after he started, she said, Johnson had plans to renovate the club’s Taft Street location, and ultimately renovated the teen center and added a music room and a dental clinic.

During his time with the club, Johnson oversaw a quadrupling of the number of families served and expanded operations across Fitchburg, Madison, Verona, and Sun Prairie, according to a biography on the club's website.

He helped create the largest public-private partnership with the Madison School District, representing an investment of more than $21.6 million in direct resources to the district's high schools.

In 2023, Johnson presided over the opening of the McKenzie Regional Workforce Center in Fitchburg to train future workers, some as young as fifth grade, for a career in the skilled trades. Johnson led the $35 million capital campaign to build the center, the largest such campaign in the history of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the organization said.

Ruben Anthony, president of the Urban League of Greater Madison, said Johnson possessed "a rare combination of bold vision, relentless energy, and genuine care for people" and called his death "an enormous loss for our community."

No small dreamer

Often among the first to show up to the scene after a tragedy, such as the 2024 shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, Johnson offered comfort to victims while demanding more from the community.

After several people fired into a crowd celebrating the life of a man who was slain in 2020, Johnson called on the city to fund more peer support but also called the “code of silence” among those who refused to cooperate with the police investigation “total BS.”

“It could be you next time,” he said. “It could be your child next time.”

A tireless advocate and fundraiser for his organization, Johnson often lent his voice in support of other child-focused efforts and, in recent years, had raised money to buy needy families vehicles or leave large Christmas-season tips at local restaurants.

“When I first met him, you could tell that he had this big vision for the Boys and Girls Club and his leadership, and you would just see that play out over and over and over again,” said Sabrina Madison, president of the Madison City Council.

Madison said she met Johnson a few weeks after he arrived in Dane County from Chicago.

“I don't remember a time when Mike was like, 'Oh, we're just going to play it small, or we'll just do the simple thing,’” she said. “Some people could be like, ‘Oh, you know, we're going to put a basket outside and drop things off,’ but not Mike. He was like, ‘We're going to fill the school bus.’”

His heart was in Madison

Johnson briefly left his job at the Dane County club in the summer of 2018 to become president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Cincinnati but left after only four months, alleging that while there he was subjected to a “hostile work environment.”

Even before he left, he said later, he kept bringing Madison up in speeches and realized that his heart was somewhere else.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County was happy to welcome him back. The Cincinnati job "made me realize that everything I want to do now is local, local, local," he said at the time.

Johnson’s impact could be felt throughout the Madison area, even among those whose time around him was limited.

Ellie Westman Chin, CEO and president of Destination Madison, said she didn’t know Johnson personally but saw the “incredible impact” that he’s had on the community and “how much he’s moved the Boys & Girls Clubs forward” during his tenure.

“I’m just sitting here in shock,” Westman Chin said Monday morning, just moments after learning of Johnson’s death. “He was just such a visionary. I just enjoyed watching what he was doing with the Boys and Girls Clubs because he was always bringing in incredible artists to perform or getting an amazing grant from a national foundation.”

‘The audacity of leadership’

Andy Gussert, state director of Wisconsin Boys & Girls Clubs, said Johnson taught him so much about “the audacity of leadership, the importance of thinking big, and to not ever let other people set limits for you …. I'll carry memories of our work together to fuel future inspiration."

Kaleem Caire, founder and CEO of One City Schools, said he met Johnson in 2010 after Caire was named the leader of the Urban League of Greater Madison and Johnson had been named head of the Boys & Girls Clubs.

“We’d ride our bikes every night for almost a year,” he said. “I told people how resilient he was — but that man had stamina and strength.”

He said he last saw Johnson last week at a leadership conference at The Edgewater hotel.

“He had gotten to the point where he just didn’t care what people said about him,” Caire said. “His job was to take care of the kids in Madison.”

In 2021, after a La Follette High School student was arrested in the school with a loaded handgun, Johnson went against the prevailing orthodoxy of some social justice advocates in calling for the return of school resource officers as part of a comprehensive plan that prioritizes student mental health and safety.

“We need mental health specialists, therapists, social workers — and SROs,” he said.

Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell said he and Johnson worked together on multiple initiatives in Madison aimed at steering youth away from the criminal justice system.

“He was one of the people who taught me about bringing in community leaders to understand what was happening in the court system so that they could create better solutions for families and children,” he said.

Mitchell said Johnson’s roots growing up in public housing in Chicago were part of what drove Johnson to work on behalf of children.

“It was almost like, because of where he came from, that was motivating his engine,” he said, and Johnson wanted to show children that they could make it even if they grew up like he did.

Mitchell said he and others were getting ready for Johnson’s annual fundraiser on June 27 for the Boys & Girls Clubs, called the All-White party because attendees dress in all white clothing.

Seeing a need everywhere

Johnson's advocacy could be wide-ranging.

In September 2024, while on sabbatical from his job at the Boys & Girls Clubs, Johnson grew incensed at the abuse being heaped on Haitian immigrants in Ohio over false claims — amplified by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance — that they were eating residents' pets.

So, Johnson and his wife, Toya, decided to drive to Springfield, Ohio, to see what they could do to help.

The Johnsons gave $1,000 in tips to some of the workers at a Haitian restaurant, using their own money at first before turning to Facebook for help. Within hours, they’d raised about $5,000 to help 12 families, he said.

In 2017, Johnson helped collect cleaning supplies and hygiene products to aid in relief efforts for victims of flooding in Texas. The group also helped provide bottled water to Flint, Michigan, when that city’s water supply was tainted, and sent six semi-trailer loads of supplies to Joplin, Missouri, and Oklahoma City when tornadoes ravaged those communities.

When Johnson learned one of his employees, the club’s custodian and resident handyman for 12 years, couldn't find a home he could afford within an hour of Madison, he solicited $100,000 in donations for a down payment on a home in Verona.

“What people should know is that Michael was a caring individual, he was a loving individual, his heart was always in the right place, but he also had a sense of humor about him as well,” Corinda Rainey-Moore, a Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness board member and public health leader in Dane County, said.

The news of Johnson’s death took many by surprise, especially Rainey-Moore, who said she had seen him the night before he died, at an anniversary dinner for the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, which she and Johnson’s wife were members of.

While he deeply loved the community, he loved his family even more, she said.

“It's very difficult to juggle family and community work,” she said. “But when he needed to be with his family, he was with his family, supporting his wife, supporting his kids, and there's no doubt that he loved his family more than anything.”

Johnson is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.

State Journal reporters George Wiebe, Chris Rickert, Samara Kalk Derby and Barry Adams contributed to this report.