America is turning 250! This milestone is worthy of the celebrations to come. Fireworks. Parades. Speeches about freedom, democracy, and the unfinished work of this remarkable experiment.
But here is what I keep thinking about.
When America was founded – before foundations, before nonprofits, before tax codes or grant cycles or anything resembling a formal philanthropic sector – there were neighbors. Neighbors who showed up when the harvest failed. Who passed a hat when a family lost their home. Who built the schoolhouse together because the children needed a place to learn and nobody was going to do it for them.
That kind of showing up is woven into the fabric of who we are.
Community Foundations did not create generosity in America. We simply organized it.
We showed up around a century ago with a simple idea: what if people’s contributions could outlast them? What if a farmer could make a gift that kept working long after he was gone? What if someone who believed in the arts could fund them for generations, not just a season?
That idea took root. Today, more than 900 community foundations serve every corner of this country, stewarding billions of dollars of permanent charitable assets on behalf of donors whose giving says: I want this place to thrive, not just today, but always. At the Community Foundation of Central Wisconsin, we hold that trust for Portage and Waushara counties. We hold it through funds that support the arts, protect the environment, invest in wellness, strengthen education, and help people meet their most basic needs. We hold it because the people who gave it to us believed this community was worth betting on, permanently.
Here is what 250 years has taught us:
Communities that invest in themselves across generations are more resilient. More creative. More connected. The towns that are thriving today are rarely the towns that just got lucky. They are the towns where people decided, repeatedly, that showing up for each other was worth the effort in the long run.
That is the America I believe in. Not the America of any one election or headline or cultural moment, but the America that cares for its future community members, ones they will never meet.
So, as we mark this milestone year, I want to ask you something. What do you want the next 250 years to look like?
Not in the abstract, but right here, in the communities we all call home. What do you want children to have access to? What do you want the land to look like? How do you want people here to show up for each other?
Those are not small questions, I know, but they are not rhetorical. And the way we answer them, in part, is by building permanent resources for lasting change.
Your partnership with this foundation is a piece of that answer. Every fund established, every gift made, every conversation had with us about your values and your hopes, that is you planting a seed for a specific kind of future.
America was built by people who could not see the outcome but invested, nonetheless. Who planted trees whose shade they would never sit under. Who gave, in every sense of the word, because they believed in something larger than themselves.
That is still happening. It is happening right here, in central Wisconsin, through the work we do together. Happy 250th, America. We are just getting started.
With love and gratitude,
Jenny Riggenbach
Chief Executive Officer, Community Foundation of Central Wisconsin
A Trusted Philanthropic Partner