Welcome to Hometown Giveback

Future generations count on what we do today.

Across our region, more than $5.3 billion in household wealth is expected to move between generations over the next decade. This is known as the great transfer of wealth. Explore what this could mean for Central and Northern Wisconsin and find your community foundation.

Find your Community Foundation Explore the Transfer of Wealth by county

A row of children applauding together, hands raised mid-clap, at a Camp HOPE gathering.

Photo by Sarah Wimmer Steffen, provided by Camp HOPE

changing hands by 2035 in Marathon, Portage, Waushara, and Wood counties: $5.3 billion
the 5% opportunity in those counties: $265 million

Figures cover 2025–2035 across Marathon, Portage, Waushara, and Wood counties, each with a Transfer of Wealth summary from University of Minnesota Extension. Statewide, the same research projects $109.5 billion in transfers over the period.

Find your hometown Community Foundation

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The opportunity

What is the Transfer of Wealth?

Over the next decade, an extraordinary amount of wealth will pass from one generation to the next, not just in the estates of the affluent, but in the homes, farms, small businesses, and lifetime savings of everyday families across our communities.

Research from the University of Minnesota Extension shows Marathon, Portage, Waushara, and Wood counties hold over $142 billion in net worth, with $5.3 billion projected to transfer over the next 10 years. What if 5% of what you leave behind stayed here, working for our community, forever? That's all it takes. And if everyone made that same small choice, together we'd have over $265 million to invest and build into grants and scholarships that impact students and the causes important to our hometowns.

Wealth is Moving

Lifetime savings are built here, in homes, farms, retirement accounts and businesses. They are passing from one generation to the next. When heirs no longer live nearby, that wealth often leaves our area for good.

5% Will Make a Difference

Committing just 5% of your legacy plan to a local community foundation endowment means a part of your lifetime of work stays home, still at work, for good, forever.

Endowments Mean Lasting Impact

An endowment is never spent down. It's invested, and a portion of its returns is distributed every year, forever. That steady stream becomes grants for nonprofits, scholarships for students, and dependable funding for the causes and the places we love.

County by county

See the opportunity where you live

Click a highlighted county to explore its transfer of wealth summary and the community foundations serving that region.

Each is locally led by its own staff and board of directors, people who call this place home.

Select a highlighted county

Tap or click any highlighted county, or use the Tab key, to see its population, Transfer of Wealth projection, and the foundations that serve it.

Where do you fit in?

Three ways to join the Giveback

For Donors

Benefit the community you love, forever.

A 5% share of what you've built, through a will, IRA, or life-insurance designation, becomes a permanent fund that quietly supports your hometown every year, forever. It doesn't take much to make a lasting difference.

Learn more

For Advisors

Ensure client legacies leave the places they love better, forever.

Attorneys, CPAs, and financial planners are the trusted voice at the moment of decision. Get county data, sample bequest language, and a simple way to ask what home has meant to your client.

Learn more

For Nonprofit Leaders

Join the conversation that invests in your mission, forever.

Hold an endowment with your community foundation and gain steady income year after year, professional stewardship without the burden, and a place to receive the gifts of land, bequests, and retirement accounts this transfer will move.

Learn more