Destination Door County has launched the Community Investment Fund which will use dollars generated by visitors to improve the quality of life for those who live and work in Door County.

Central to the work of Destination Door County is an effort to ensure that every visitor has an enjoyable experience. While Door County is a naturally welcoming community, DDC’s primary reason for ensuring visitors enjoy their experience in Door County is because it benefits our residents. When people visit Door County, they spend money here – creating jobs for our families, generating incremental tax dollars, providing us economic opportunities, and supporting the amenities that enhance the quality of life for those of us lucky enough to call Door County home. We use tourism to build a better life for the residents of Door County.

The Community Investment Fund, created in partnership with the Door County Community Foundation, is a natural evolution of Destination Door County’s work. Using a portion of the room tax dollars paid by visitors, the Community Investment Fund will offer grants to projects that improve the quality of life for those who live and work in Door County. It’s yet another example that tourism makes life better for Door County residents.

Wisconsin State Statutes require that we use room tax dollars in ways that benefit visitors, so that must be a requirement of any application to the Community Investment Fund. However, to earn a grant from the Community Investment Fund a project must also demonstrate how it will meaningfully improve the quality of life for residents of Door County.

Grant awards will vary greatly, ranging from just a few thousand dollars to potentially into the hundreds of thousands.  We anticipate that the average grant will be about $100,000, but more modest requests are welcome and encouraged.  Qualified applicants include 501(c)(3) public charities, 501(c)(6) organizations, and units of government.

Given that the Community Investment Fund must comply with complex Wisconsin State Statute rules regarding the use of room tax dollars, we strongly encourage applicants to reach out to the Community Foundation for an informal assessment of their idea prior to the submission of a formal application.  Email grants@givedoorcounty.org or call the Community Foundation at (920) 746-1786 to schedule an appointment.

Community Investment Fund Grant Guidelines

The specific priorities of the Community Investment Fund are:

• Creative ideas that have a meaningful impact on the people who live and work in Door County
• Impact crosses municipal boundaries
• Encourages collaboration
• Leverages additional resources
• Residents experience the positive impact of tourism

The more of these priorities that are addressed by an application, the more likely it is that a project will receive a grant.

Most Common Types of Projects

To help you understand how to meet statutory requirements, projects appropriate for funding from the Community Investment Fund usually fall into at least one of the three categories defined below.

Tangible Development:
The most common type of application that will meet statutory requirements are those that involve tangible development.  These include capital construction projects as well as upgrades and expansions of existing facilities.  The installation of permanent exhibits will often qualify, as might customer-facing items and equipment that improve their experience.  Appropriate “tangible” projects will result in something that has a definable physical form which are long-term, reusable, or permanent in nature. 

Exceptional Events:
These kinds of projects are more challenging to qualify under state statutes but might still be appropriate under certain circumstances.  The most common examples are activities, programs, or events that will be marketed broadly and have significant appeal beyond the normal audience or customers served by the applicant. 

Public Information:
Ongoing operational expenses are by far the most difficult kinds of applications to align with statutory requirements.  However, if the activities you are asking us to fund provide useful information that is relevant to those visiting Door County, the operating costs associated with those activities may qualify.  Please confer with the professional staff for more information.

The three categories above articulate the most common types of appropriate applications, but the Community Investment Fund is also willing to have a conversation about the uncommon project – the innovative idea that doesn’t neatly fit into any of these boxes but will still have a meaningful impact on visitors and residents alike.  Creative thinking that pushes the envelope is strongly encouraged, but nobody wants to waste time developing an idea that just isn’t permissible under state statutes.  That’s why all prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to bring their ideas to the Community Foundation for a conversation before taking the time to complete a formal application.  Email grants@givedoorcounty.org or call the Community Foundation at (920) 746-1786 to schedule an appointment.

Projects Prohibited by Wisconsin State Statutes

Unfortunately, the Community Investment Fund is not able to provide financial support for any kind of lodging or housing project.  Wisconsin State Statutes expressly prohibit the use of room tax dollars for that purpose.  However, if you are interested in building affordable workforce housing, we encourage you to learn more about the Workforce Housing Lending Corporation, another project of the Community Foundation that is helping finance the construction of affordable multi-family units. 

Application

Please complete the Community Foundation’s Common Grant Application and the Community Investment Fund Addendum A and submit both via email to applications@givedoorcounty.org.

Each organization is limited to one application per Grant Cycle. However, organizations may submit applications in successive Grant Cycles or to the other granting programs of the Community Foundation that might be open at the same time.

The Chief Executive of your organization must review the entire Application Packet and sign the Application Form accordingly. This is an important step in the process as on occasion we have received applications that were submitted without the knowledge of the charity’s senior management. To protect your organization and ours, we now require that your Chief Executive review your Application Packet before we will consider it.

For purposes of this application, the “Chief Executive” is generally the highest-ranking paid staff person in your organization. In many charities, it is the Executive Director or President & CEO. For schools, the Superintendent must sign the Application Form. For units of government, the highest-ranking official such as a Mayor or Village Administrator must sign.

For an all-volunteer organization, the Board President should sign the Application Form.

We will accept the typed name and email address of the Chief Executive typed on the Application Form as an “electronic signature” if the Application Packet is submitted by email. However, please note that if it is not an original signature, we may contact the Chief Executive listed on the form to confirm their electronic signature.

Letters of Support

Consistent with Wisconsin State Statutes, the Community Investment Fund can only invest in projects that will be significantly used by tourists AND are reasonably likely to lead to an increase in paid overnight stays.  If it’s not obvious or clear as to how your project meets both of these statutory requirements, you might consider submitting a Letter of Support from a local innkeeper or other business/organization that serves a significant number of tourists.  Letters of Support should be submitted as PDF files along with your other application materials to applications@givedoorcounty.org.

Application Deadlines

Community Investment Fund applications are accepted multiple times a year as follows:

Spring Sustainability Grant Cycle
Applications Due: 1st Thursday of April at 4:00 p.m.

Summer Sustainability Grant Cycle
Applications Due: 1st Thursday of July at 4:00 p.m.

Fall Sustainability Grant Cycle
Applications Due: 1st Thursday of October at 4:00 p.m.

Winter Sustainability Grant Cycle
Applications Due: 1st Thursday of January at 4:00 p.m.

Please provide your contact information if you would like to receive emails announcing when applications become available for the various grant programs of the Community Foundation.

Submit your completed Common Grant Application and Community Investment Fund Addendum A via email to applications@givedoorcounty.org.

On occasion, our spam filters inadvertently screen out emails from some charities. You should receive an email within 3 business days of our receipt of your application confirming its receipt. If you do not receive this confirmation, please call (920) 746-1786 to confirm that we received your application materials.

Given that the Community Investment Fund must comply with complex Wisconsin State Statute rules regarding the use of room tax dollars, we strongly encourage applicants to reach out to the Community Foundation for an informal assessment of their idea prior to the submission of a formal application.  Email grants@givedoorcounty.org or call the Community Foundation at (920) 746-1786 to schedule an appointment.

The Olivia M. Dahl Excellence Fund is a component fund of the Door County Community Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. Thus, all gifts are fully deductible as allowed by law.

Give using a Credit Card
The Community Foundation welcomes gifts to any of our funds via credit or debit card. Please click here to begin a credit card transaction.

Give by sending a Check
Please mail checks to:
Olivia M. Dahl Excellence Fund
c/o Door County Community Foundation
222 N 3rd Ave
Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235

Give Stocks, Real Estate, or Other Assets
The Community Foundation is pleased to accept direct gifts of highly appreciated assets – generally saving you from capital gains taxes and offering you a charitable deduction as well. Contact the Community Foundation if you’re interested in making such a gift to any of our Funds.

Give through your Estate Plans
The Community Foundation is a terrific vehicle for giving back through your estate plans. We’re able to work with most any kind of planned gift including bequests, retirement accounts, insurance policies, life estates with retained interest, charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts – and far too many other tools to list them all here. Contact us at the Community Foundation and we’d be honored to help you give back to any of our Funds – or any charity in Door County or across the United States.

Olivia Martin Dahl was a sixteen-year-old high school senior when her life was cut short in a tragic plane crash that occurred in Peninsula State Park coming home from a flying lesson in Green Bay in a volunteer pilot’s plane.  As her parents, we wish to honor her with a fund to provide scholarships for other gifted and talented students to pursue educational and enrichment opportunities available outside of school.  Oftentimes, such programs are expensive, and therefore inaccessible without the help of scholarships.

Click here to make a gift to the Olivia M. Dahl Excellence Fund.

Our daughter learned to read when she was three years old. She was the youngest child to have entered kindergarten at Gibraltar School, at just four years old and with a December birthday.  During the early entrance screening, Olivia read the test provider’s instructions to him. And on her first school bus rides, she became famous for spelling pneumonoultramicroscopicvolcanoiosis (and telling people the definition.) By the time she was in first grade, Olivia had read all of the Harry Potter books that had been published and we stood in line with her at midnight at Passtimes Books in Sister Bay to get The Deathly Hallows.

As she got older, we found that school was not enough for Olivia’s academic and social needs. So we enrolled her in her first three-week summer camp program at Northwestern University during the summer after 5^th grade, where she studied computer programming.  She was one of only two young girls in that course—the rest were all boys.  Her roommate was a young girl from Ukraine. 

Every summer after that, Olivia attended at least one summer camp, most of which were at UW Madison under the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth (WCATY.)  The summer she was 13, Olivia attended an additional camp called Women in Technology, in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.  It had a highly competitive application process, and admitted only 16 young women each year.  (In part, it was Olivia’s ACT score that helped her make the cut.) The young women were exposed to many aspects of technology such as building radios, programming industrial robots to pick up objects, and more. Each student had to choose a final project, and for hers Olivia chose to complete a computer aided design project that would print out a three-dimensional prototype of a robotic arm. 

When we returned to Sault Ste. Marie to pick her up, we learned that the professors had been amazed by the fact that a thirteen-year-old completed the CAD project, as normally it takes a college student a whole semester complete it.  One mistake in the coding causes the programmer to have to go back to a certain point and start again. But given Olivia had a little previous experience in programming and could type 100+ words a minute, she already had skills that many college students haven’t yet developed. 

Olivia also loved music, and had been a student of piano, violin, and bassoon, and she loved to noodle around with her ocarina and guitar. She had the privilege of working with a professional bassoonist one-on-one at a summer camp at UW Madison, and of joining the large and diverse orchestra for a performance at the end of camp.

We believe that when a child is engaged and challenged, skills build upon skills and self-confidence grows.  From there, the drive to become excellent at something begins to manifest itself.  The goal of striving for excellence is to become successful, even eminent in one’s chosen field or passion. This is how science, medicine, engineering and technology will advance for the betterment of this world, and how the arts will remain vibrant to enrich our lives.  Our desire is that the Olivia Dahl Excellence Fund will assist other gifted children in our community in accessing the kinds of outside programs and opportunities we were able to provide our child, in order that they stay engaged and challenged in learning, and so that they to go on to become expert in whatever careers they choose.

-Collin & Jennifer Dahl