Kristi Shepard, Director, Foundation & Gift Planning
phone: (608) 246-4399
email: foundation@uwdc.org
Postal: 2059 Atwood Ave | P.O. Box 7548 | Madison, WI 53707-7548
United Way Foundation
Our Purpose
The United Way Foundation exists to support United Way’s mission of improving lives and strengthening Dane County.
Our community is dynamic. The Foundation provides a long-term base of support and the flexibility to strengthen our community as it changes. Through the Foundation, individuals and families can leave a lasting legacy of caring.
The Foundation is helping us achieve the critical goals identified by the community as the Plan for Community Well-Being. Every year, it contributes to the resources United Way mobilized to strengthen our community and increases our impact. By investing in the Foundation today, you help tackle the root causes of problems in perpetuity. The principal of your gifts will be maintained while the income is used to create real results, today and tomorrow.
Foundation Impact
$10,500,000
To unite the community to achieve measurable results that change lives—today and tomorrow
150
Named Funds generously established by community members for lasting impact
$1,000,000
Recommended for Affordable Housing Fund Loans
Ways to Give
The Foundation’s legal name is United Way of Dane County Foundation, Inc. The Foundation’s EIN is 39-1763471.
To make a Memorial Gift, please select the Foundation Donation Page button below.
For questions, please contact foundation@uwdc.org
The simplest way to support the Foundation is with a gift of cash. Many donors choose to make gifts to honor or memorialize a caring community member.
By contributing $5,000, either with one outright gift or a multi-year pledge, a permanently named fund can be established. This allows the donor to make an annual gift to United Way of support an area of interest.
Tocqueville Legacy Circle endowed gift funds start with a $250,000 commitment.
Depending on the circumstances, gifts of appreciated stocks, bonds or other securities held in excess of one year are often very tax-wise and allows donors to give generously to United Way.
Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are charitable giving accounts to make current or legacy gifts.
Testamentary gifts allow a donor to bequest a percentage of an estate, bequest a specific gift amount or bequest a residuary estate. The legal name to use in these documents is United Way of Dane County Foundation, Inc.
Naming the United Way Foundation as a beneficiary is a generous way to make a legacy gift “outside” of a will.
Resources
Foundation-Loaned Executives Grants (Available May 2026)
2025 United Way of Dane County Foundation Board of Trustees
Thomas E. Dott
Chair
Chair
First Business Bank
Dorothy Steffens
Vice Chair
Retired-Community Leader
Gary Schaefer
Secretary/Treasurer
Secretary/Treasurer
Retired-Associated Bank
Shayna Borakove
Borakove Osman LLC
Christopher Cain
Foley & Lardner LLP
Greg Dombrowski
Retired-Community Leader
Terry Heinrichs
18Forty8 Private Wealth
Kirsten Houghton
SVA
Cedric Johnson
Exact Sciences
Patti Madden
Community Leader
Anita Schleicher Mahamed
Wipfli, LLP
Renee Moe
Ex Officio
United Way of Dane County
Ursula Norwood
Alliant Energy
Meg Prestigiacomo
Baird
Greg Rademacher
Buttonwood Partners, Inc.
Teo Trandafir
UW Credit Union
Ginger Zimmerman
Ex Officio
Murphy Desmond LLP
Active Honorary Trustees
Marion Brown
Jeff Levy
Norma Madsen
Catherine Taylor
Investment Committee
Meg Prestigiacomo, Chair
Jeff Levy
Greg Rademacher
Gary Schaefer
Teo Trandafir