Fort Atkinson Community Foundation

06/17/2026

Unfortunately, our foundation experienced an outage of all of our Microsoft products, including Outlook, from Saturday - 11am today (Wednesday).

We were unable to receive or send any emails during that time.

If you emailed us during that outage time, we kindly ask that you resend your message so our team can be sure to follow-up with you as soon as possible.

We appreciate your patience and understanding!

06/17/2026

We are honored to announce the opening of the Barbara Rohland Donor-Advised Fund - the 94th fund held in our foundation's investment portfolio!

We are so grateful to the donors who invest in our foundation and the local impact work it allows us to have, together. Our Donor-Advised Funds provide us the opportunity to work with fundholders to distribute support to organizations, causes, and programs that align with their interest, values, and passions.

Thank you to Barbara Rohland, for her investment and trust in our foundation.

To support this fund, scan the QR code or click the link below:
https://shorturl.at/283vi

06/16/2026

We are having some significant technical issues here at the foundation with our Microsoft products. Unfortunately, this means we do not currently have access to our email account and any emails being sent are bounced back to the sender.

We are actively working with Microsoft to resolve this issue and hope it will be fixed as soon as possible.

Our community grant deadline was yesterday, and we realize any emailed submissions would not have been able to get through. So we are extending the deadline to next Monday, June 22nd.

If you have been trying to email us anything, we ask that you please stay tuned here and resend your message once our account is back up and running. Or please call our office at 920.563.3210.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and understanding!

06/15/2026

Stay tuned for some wonderful updates to the Brietzke Educational Wetland this summer (while still maintaining it's natural beauty)!

The new pier has been installed and will soon have educational signage and audio boards installed - turning the space into a true, outdoor educational environment.

You'll also see some concrete work happening soon, to prepare for the installation of a new entryway and some amazing metal artwork by local artist, Brady Lueck. And let's not forget about the new table, benches and bike rack that will be installed soon.

Thank you to Project LEAD, the Brietzke family, the School District of Fort Atkinson and the Fort Atkinson Area Chamber of Commerce for their partnership support in this exciting project, and to the dozens of local organizations and donors who invested in this work.

We look forward to sharing the full list of all the generous supporters of this project soon!

06/12/2026

Right at the end of the School District of Fort Atkinson school year, we received another wonderful update from a recipient of one of our 2025-2026 Educator Wish Grants!

Lori Held, Math Interventionist at Rockwell Elementary School, was awarded funding to purchase new math games and shared the following:

"Thank you for awarding me an Educator Wish Grant during the 2025–26 school year. Because of your generosity, I was able to purchase high-quality math games that support the development of spatial visualization, problem-solving, and executive functioning skills for students in grades 3–5 at Rockwell School.
Both students and teachers have enjoyed learning and playing these new games. They provide engaging opportunities for students to strengthen important skills such as flexible thinking, planning, working memory, and self-control while building confidence in their mathematical thinking."

THANK YOU to all who support this wonderful funding opportunity, allowing us to be a small part of the incredible impact our local educators have on so many students!

06/09/2026

Congratulations to this year's 8th grade Rose Inspire-a-Dream scholarship nominees!

June Duarte (Rockwell), Nainah Harrison (Barrie), Blake Sampson (Purdy), and Chase Miller (Luther), were presented their award letters for this incredibly unique scholarship opportunity during their 8th grade promotion ceremony last week!

Fred and Helen Rose were longtime residents of Fort Atkinson who expanded on an idea, first developed by Dr. Rick Brietzke, then principal of Purdy Elementary School, to encourage promising eighth-grade students to consider attending a four-year college after graduation. his led to the idea of planting a seed in eighth grade to encourage a goal to pursue college, allowing the idea of that goal to grow during high school.

To assist with this initiative, Fred and Helen established the Rose Inspire-a-Dream Scholarship Fund to provide encouragement and financial assistance to help make the dream of college possible. The scholarship is funded by the generosity of the Rose family and contributions from each of the four public elementary schools in Fort Atkinson.

These students were nominated by a middle school committee, along with other students from their elementary schools, and were then selected as the nominee from committees at their respective elementary schools. They were chosen based on their academic performance, kindness, positivity, school involvement, interactions with others, maturity, leadership, and many other impressive traits.

If these students can uphold the expectations of the award throughout their high school careers, they will automatically receive a $2,000 scholarship at their senior awards night.

Please join us in congratulating these incredible students!

06/08/2026

REMINDER: Our next submission deadline for Community Grant applications is next Monday, June 15th. Applications must be received by 5pm for consideration at our July board meeting.

Applicants must be tax-exempt organizations that serve a public purpose.

More details can be found at our website (linked below), and questions can always be directed to our office at 920.563.3210 or [email protected].

https://www.fortfoundation.org/community-grants

06/05/2026

Our May newsletter was FULL of updates on community grant funding, scholarship support, community partner events, ongoing projects, and much more.

Click below to stay updated on all things FACF! :)

“We are incredibly excited to launch the Fort Atkinson Repair Program and serve the community in a new and meaningful way. Habitat has years of experience completing critical home repairs that help homeowners stay in the homes they love. We are deeply grateful to the City of Fort Atkinson and the ...

06/04/2026

The Wisconsin State Building Commission recently awarded funding to community projects through the Non-State Grant Program.

CONGRATULATIONS to BASE Fort Atkinson and Rock River Community Clinic for both being awarded significant grants.

BASE Fort Atkinson: $800,000 to complete Phase 1 projects
RRCC: $300,000 for their capital campaign

These grants will put both organizations over their fundraising goal for these projects (which were both also heavily supported by our foundation!). It's incredible to see these local investments for organizations that are making such a difference for so many children, families, and individuals in Fort Atkinson!

Significant investments: BASE, Rock River Community Clinic awarded Non‑State Projects Grants

http://dlvr.it/TSctd4