Community Foundation Awards Sustainability Grant to Unity Hospice

The Door County Community Foundation recently awarded Unity Hospice a Sustainability Grant from the Health and Human Needs Fund.  This grant will assist with providing end of life care for critically ill patients who have limited to no financial resources.

Unity is the only provider of home-based palliative care for residents of Door County. To help meet the needs of patients and their families, Unity provides routine skilled nursing visits, 24-hour skilled nursing phone support, social work visits to assist with personal cares, chaplain visits to offer spiritual support and trained volunteers to provide companionship, caregiver respite and transportation assistance.

“The services provided by Unity are invaluable for community members who are coping with the effects of life-limiting and terminal illness,” said Polly Alberts, Chair of the Door County Community Foundation. “Unity delivers compassionate programming that supports patients, families and friends as we move through these major life transitions.”

Pictured from left to right is Polly Alberts, Chair of the Door County Community Foundation & Diana Butz, Director of Development at Unity Hospice .

Unity is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit community provider of hospice care, palliative care and grief support in 12 counties throughout Northeast Wisconsin.  A true leader in its field, Unity has the distinction of having opened the state’s first hospice in 1977, the state’s first non-hospital based palliative care program in 2002 and the area’s first hospice residence in 2007. Unity provides a full spectrum of end-of-life care and education benefiting all members of the community.

Unity’s mission is “To bring the best end-of-life experience to our communities by delivering unwavering strength, compassion and support.”  Every day, nearly 550 patients throughout the region are served by Unity’s programming with the help of a committed group of 300 volunteers.

For more information regarding Unity Hospice, please call (800) 990-9249 or visit www.UnityHospice.org.

The Door County Community Foundation’s Sustainability Grants program distributes grant dollars from funds such as the Arts Fund, Children & Youth Fund, Green Fund, Health & Human Needs Fund, Education Fund, Historic Preservation Fund, Healthy Water Fund, and the Women’s Fund.

For more information about the Community Foundation’s services and various grant programs, please visit www.GiveDoorCounty.org.

The Door County Community Foundation, Inc. is a collection of separate charitable funds set up by individuals, families, non-profit organizations, private foundations and businesses that are managed, invested and disbursed for the current and future good of Door County.  The Foundation was launched in 1999 and currently administers more than $16 million in charitable assets.

 

Community Foundation Awards Sustainability Grant to the Peninsula Players Theatre Foundation, Inc.

The Door County Community Foundation recently awarded Peninsula Players a Sustainability Grant from the Arts Fund to support the program, The Play’s the Thing.  Components of the program involve offering free, off-season play readings to the public and also provides opportunities for students to receive play writing instruction that culminates in a play writing contest.

The free public play readings, held at various sites throughout Door County, provide the community with an enriching opportunity to hear plays read aloud that would not normally be produced at Peninsula Players.  In addition, students have the unique experience to learn about different ways of writing and then practice applying that learning with the help of professional guidance.

“These readings provided the community with the enriching opportunity to hear plays read aloud that would not normally be produced at the Players due to their size, nature and/or complexity,” said David Eliot, Past Chair of the Door County Community Foundation.

Pictured from left to right is Davis Eliot of the Door County Community Foundation and Danielle Szmanda, Development & Events Manager. 

Peninsula Players Theatre is America’s oldest professional resident summer theatre and Wisconsin’s oldest professional theater company.  The Players have produced more than 500 plays at the “Theatre in a Garden” and is one of only two remaining resident stock theaters producing beyond the east coast.

For more information regarding Peninsula Players, please call (920) 868-3287 or visit www.PeninsulaPlayers.com

The Door County Community Foundation’s Sustainability Grants program distributes grant dollars from funds such as the Arts Fund, Children & Youth Fund, Green Fund, Health & Human Needs Fund, Education Fund, Historic Preservation Fund, Healthy Water Fund, and the Women’s Fund.

For more information about the Community Foundation’s services and various grant programs, please visit www.GiveDoorCounty.org.

The Door County Community Foundation, Inc. is a collection of separate charitable funds set up by individuals, families, non-profit organizations, private foundations and businesses that are managed, invested and disbursed for the current and future good of Door County.  The Foundation was launched in 1999 and currently administers more than $16 million in charitable assets.

 

Community Foundation Awards Sustainability Grant to Crossroads at Big Creek

The Door County Community Foundation has awarded Crossroads at Big Creek a Sustainability Grant from the Green Fund, the John and Nell Herlache Community Impact Fund, and the Ruth & Hartley Barker Memorial Fund. This grant supports the replacement of the dock at Big Creek Cove.

The Mission of Crossroads at Big Creek is to provide life-long, experience-based learning which will nurture historical and cultural appreciation, scientific curiosity and environmental awareness. A 100′ floating dock with an 8’ x 10’ platform enables Crossroads to increase their educational, research, and recreational programming.

“Now that people are able to paddle to a functional and safe dock, we anticipate increased visitation to Crossroads at Big Creek,” said Marcia Smith, Vice Chair of the Door County Community Foundation.

Picture from the left: Coggin Heeringa, Director of Crossroads at Big Creek, Dick Weidman, President of Crossroads of Big Creek, Marcia Smith, Vice Chair of the Door County Community Foundation

 Crossroads at Big Creek is a beautiful 200-acre preserve that provides opportunities for experiential, life-long learning.  A visit to Crossroads nurtures historical and cultural appreciation, scientific curiosity, and environmental awareness.

To learn more about Crossroads at Big Creek, please call 920-746-5895 or visit, http://www.crossroadsatbigcreek.com/

The Door County Community Foundation’s Sustainability Grants program distributes grant dollars from funds such as the Arts Fund, Children & Youth Fund, Education Fund, Green Fund, Health & Human Needs Fund, Healthy Water Fund, Historic Preservation Fund, and the Women’s Fund.

For more information about the Community Foundation’s services and various grant programs, please visit www.GiveDoorCounty.org.

The Door County Community Foundation, Inc. is a collection of separate charitable funds set up by individuals, families, non-profit organizations, private foundations and businesses that are managed, invested and disbursed for the current and future good of Door County.  The Foundation was launched in 1999 and currently administers more than $16 million in charitable assets.

Go Fraud Me

A newborn baby in Milwaukee needs a heart transplant so a family “friend” sets up a page on a crowdfunding website to collect donations to help care for the child. Unfortunately, the sick child’s parents had no control over the website and all those contributions made by the community never reach the family.

A wife and mother tragically dies in Texas due to complications during birth. The community is invited to donate through a crowdfunding website to help ease the financial burden on the husband and his now motherless children. While the tragedy is all too real, the website was created without the family’s knowledge by a criminal who stole all the gifts.

An Iowa mom pretends that her daughter has cancer so she can prey on people’s generosity and solicit contributions through a crowdfunding website. The mom even goes so far as to shave her daughter’s head and use the staged photographs to gain sympathy as she cons good people out of their money.

These are just a few of the many examples of the most heinous kind of fraud imaginable – using personal tragedies to steal money from generous people. It’s the dark side of crowdfunding.

GoFundMe. Indiegogo. Kickstarter. WePay. Fundable. By some estimates, there are nearly 500 crowdfunding platforms online today. Crowdfunding, for the uninitiated, normally involves a person setting up an online webpage at a crowdfunding website so the public – the “crowd” – can contribute to the development of a product or project. The crowdfunding platform processes the credit card transaction, collects a fee, then deposits the rest of the money in the checking account of the person who set up the webpage.

The majority of crowdfunding is initiated by an entrepreneur who wants to develop a product, but it is increasingly being used by individual people to ask their friends and family to help them in times of need or to make a dream come true. While crowdfunding can be a wonderful way to offer financial support to others in your community, it’s also an easy way for conmen to defraud you of your money under the guise of asking for your help.

Of course, these crowdfunding websites don’t intend to offer a platform for fraud. Indeed, the largest and most reputable online funding websites have teams of people dedicated to ferreting out criminal behavior. The challenge is that these “charity” scams pull on your heartstrings and count on you making a quick, impulse decision. The hustlers then withdraw the money and get away before the crowdfunding platform, or the donors, realize it was all just a scam. Here are some simple things you can do to ensure that your money is used for legitimate reasons.

Give to people you know.

It’s much harder for a horrible mom to lie and make you believe her child has cancer if your kids go to school with her daughter. If you’re going to give through a crowdfunding website, make sure you know the person you’re trying to help so you can be sure their story is real. Far too often that terrible tragedy wasn’t a tragedy at all, but rather a scam to con you out of your money.

Make sure the person you want to help knows about the campaign.

In the immediate aftermath of a tragedy, most of us feel compelled to do something. Since there is often little we can do to fix the problem, we opt to make a donation in hopes it will alleviate some of the suffering. That’s a wonderful human instinct and speaks volumes about fundamental human decency and compassion. Unfortunately, it’s also what conmen prey upon.

If you see a webpage collecting money for someone you know who experienced a personal tragedy, make sure the person you’re trying to help is actually affiliated with the fundraising campaign. Scammers will often create these temporary webpages on a crowdfunding website to steal your money. If you’re not careful, you might think you’re giving to a friend when in reality your friend might not know anything about it.

Better yet, give to a local charity instead.

The one way you can be absolutely sure your money is being used as you intend is to give to a reputable local charity. For instance, on our little peninsula, there’s the charity DOOR CANcer, Inc. If someone you know has cancer, encourage them to apply to DOOR CANcer (doorcancer.com) if they need assistance paying household bills during their treatment. Your contribution to DOOR CANcer helps people like your friend directly, but you can be confident in the knowledge that DOOR CANcer is verifying the legitimacy of the request and ensuring that your money is actually being spent on bills that help the family.

A similar example is the Go Bo! Foundation that was established in honor of the late Bo Johnson. If you know of a child diagnosed with a life-threatening medical condition, encourage their family to apply to the Go Bo! Foundation (gobofoundation.org) for help with household expenses. The Go Bo! Foundation verifies the medical condition then ensures that the money is used to actually help the child and his or her family.

Make-A-Wish Wisconsin uses a similar verification process before fulfilling the wishes of sick children. We Are HOPE, Inc. makes sure that a family actually needs financial assistance before helping pay a needy family’s heating bills through the Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program. There are many examples of local charities doing great work directly for families in Door County.

It might not be as emotionally rewarding to give to an organization rather than an individual directly, but giving back through our local charities is the best way to guarantee that a person in need actually gets the help they deserve.

This article originally appeared in the Peninsula Pulse.

 

Community Foundation Awards Sustainability Grant to Crossroads at Big Creek

The Door County Community Foundation has awarded Crossroads at Big Creek a Sustainability Grant from the Clifford and Clara Herlache Heritage Foundation, the John and Nell Herlache Community Impact Fund, and the Historic Preservation Fund. This grant supports an interactive archaeological dig at the Ida Bay Preserve.

The sustainability grant helps provide the opportunity to introduce the disciplines of archaeology and historical preservation to Door County school children and learners of all ages.  Professional researchers and field technicians will be teamed with students and citizen science volunteers who will become partners in discovery as we conduct an archaeological dig at the Ida Bay Preserve.

“Crossroads at Big Creek is dedicated to welcoming learners of all ages for hands-on activities focused on science, history and the environment,” said John Herlache, board member of the Door County Community Foundation. “It is hard to imagine a project that so closely archives all three parts of their mission.”
Pictured from left to right are John Herlache, board member of the Door County Community Foundation & Coggin Heeringa, Director of Crossroads. 

To learn more about Crossroads at Big Creek, please call 920-746-5895 or visit, http://www.crossroadsatbigcreek.com/

The Door County Community Foundation’s Sustainability Grants program distributes grant dollars from funds such as the Arts Fund, Children & Youth Fund, Education Fund, Green Fund, Health & Human Needs Fund, Healthy Water Fund, Historic Preservation Fund, and the Women’s Fund.

For more information about the Community Foundation’s services and various grant programs, please visit www.GiveDoorCounty.org.

The Door County Community Foundation, Inc. is a collection of separate charitable funds set up by individuals, families, non-profit organizations, private foundations and businesses that are managed, invested and disbursed for the current and future good of Door County.  The Foundation was launched in 1999 and currently administers more than $16 million in charitable assets.

Community Foundation Awards Sustainability Grant to FISC Consumer Credit Counseling

The Door County Community Foundation has awarded FISC Consumer Credit Counseling of Door County a Sustainability Grant from the Education Fund. This grant helps to fund programs in response to emerging needs in student loan debt counseling and pre-marital financial counseling.

The National Foundation of Credit Counseling is offering a student loan conseling certification program to its member agencies to address the student loan debt crisis. With this grant, FISC will be able to offer this additional service to our community.  In addition, FISC will use the sustainability grant to develop and offer pre-marital 1-1 financial counseling to help couples build trust and transparency on their relationships.

“The nation’s college student’s owe a total of $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. Wisconsin is not immune,” says Richard Hauser, Treasurer of the Door County Community Foundation. “We must take steps to address this emerging issue in our country and community.”

Pictured from left to right are Gay Pustaver, Executive Director of FISC Consumer Credit Counseling & Richard Hauser, Treasurer of the Door County Community Foundation.

FISC is a community organization that helps families and individuals improve the quality of their lives by teaching financial literacy and proving tools to promote the application of sound financial principles.

For more information regarding the programs and services provided by FISC, please call 920-743-1862 or visit www.MoneyManagementCounselors.com.

The Door County Community Foundation’s Sustainability Grants program distributes grant dollars from funds such as the Arts Fund, Children & Youth Fund, Green Fund, Health & Human Needs Fund, Education Fund, Historic Preservation Fund, Healthy Water Fund, and the Women’s Fund.

For more information about the Community Foundation’s services and various grant programs, please visit www.GiveDoorCounty.org.

The Door County Community Foundation, Inc. is a collection of separate charitable funds set up by individuals, families, non-profit organizations, private foundations and businesses that are managed, invested and disbursed for the current and future good of Door County.  The Foundation was launched in 1999 and currently administers more than $16 million in charitable assets.

Women’s Equality and Societal Progress

Women are more likely than men to give to women’s and girls’ causes, though “the differences are not as great as might have otherwise been expected.” That’s just one of the fascinating conclusions found in Giving to Women and Girls: Who Gives and Why, the latest study released in May 2016 as a part of a first of its kind research initiative of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.

We’ve long known that only about five to seven percent of all foundation giving is specifically targeted at charitable work impacting women and girls but little was known about how gender impacts the choices of individual donors. This series of studies funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offered the first empirical research that could be brought into the conversation about gender differences in philanthropy. The earlier research papers, “Do Women Give More?” and “Where Do Men and Women Give?,” were discussed in the Peninsula Pulse when they were released last year.

One of the interesting things about this newest study is how giving to women’s and girls’ causes is relatively consistent among different demographic groups. One would reasonably expect that women are far more likely than men to give to charities that impact females. However, the researchers were surprised to find that while roughly 50 percent of female donors give specifically to women’s and girls’ causes, about 40 percent of male donors choose to do so as well. Similarly, the study found that married (or cohabitating) couples “are not statistically significantly more likely to give to women’s and girls’ causes compared to single-headed households.”

The study also found that “race, education level, the presence of children below the age of 18 in the household, and employment status do not appear to impact the incidence or amount of giving to women’s and girls’ causes.” A family’s income is the one demographic that does have a significant correlation in giving to this population. Those with higher incomes are considerably more likely to give to charities impacting women and girls and also tend to make larger gifts when doing so.

The researchers also were able to identify the two key motivations that drive giving to women’s and girls’ causes.

First, this study found that women’s charitable preferences are greatly influenced by personal experience, which is consistent with the conclusions of earlier research. In what seems like a fairly obvious conclusion in retrospect, the researchers found that for women donors, “their personal experience of being a woman; experiencing gaps, disparities and/or discrimination in society” was a strong motivator for giving to charities that serve females.

In a comment indicative of the feelings of many donors, one person said they had little interest in women’s and girls’ causes until “I had two daughters, and that was really the turning point for me…thinking about the world they were going to inherit.” Experiencing discrimination themselves, or witnessing it first-hand, was a key motivator for those who choose to give to charities that impact females.

The second and more intriguing motivation is that donors are increasingly seeing the link between “advancing women’s equality” and “societal progress.” This is something that many professional fundraisers had begun to intuit, but which has never before been affirmed by empirical research.

The study concluded that many donors are “motivated by the need for women to have equality of opportunity at a societal level, which can address other societal issues. Both current donors and non-donors explained they were motivated to support these causes because of research showing that investing in women and girls yields greater social return, including addressing underlying issues such as poverty and a lack of education.”

As a part of the study, a series of focus groups were convened with people who contributed to United Ways and women’s funds across the country. The study found that donors are greatly influenced by the “research and statistics [that] support the premise that investing in women and girls yields a greater social impact, and that such researched informed and supported their own philanthropic decisions.”

In the restrained language that is a characteristic of academic research, the authors humbly referred to this very important link as “a new finding.” Yet it has monumental implications for organizations that serve females because this key driver of giving is not limited only to those who are current donors. The researchers found that “this idea was also voiced by those who were not currently giving to women and girls but would consider doing so in the future.”

Previous studies have demonstrated that women are much more likely to contribute to charity and in greater amounts. Just as a business needs to understand the needs and desires of its customers, so too must charities delve into what motivates the generosity of their donors. This research shines a bright new light on how gender affects charitable giving. The charities of Door County would be wise to understand how those gender differences influence contributions to their organization.

This article originally appeared in the Peninsula Pulse.