Maybe you’ve lived in Three Lakes your whole life. Maybe you’re a fourth-generation summer resident who learned to fish off the same dock your grandfather did, and now you bring your own kids up every July. Either way, you know something about this place that doesn’t show up in a population count: 1,400 people in January, closer to 10,000 by the Fourth – and somehow, still, one community.
That kind of continuity doesn’t happen by accident. It’s held together by the Demmer Memorial Library’s reading programs, the newly created Veterans’ Memorial, and something as simple as the annual Lion’s Club Pancake Breakfast before the 4th of July Parade. Someone shows up for those things, year after year, whether or not you’re here to see it.
The Three Lakes Community Foundation exists so that *you* can be one of those someones – even the summers you can’t make it up, even after you’re gone.
We manage $123,000 in endowed and working funds and received $57,000 in gifts during the 2025-26 fiscal year. That’s not a small thing for a town our size. It means when you give here, you can see exactly what happens next – not into a general fund somewhere far away, but into the parts of Three Lakes you actually love.
Here’s how our funds work. What do you want to do?
A note on “endowed” vs. “non-endowed”
Several of the fund types above can be set up either way, and it’s worth understanding the difference:
Endowed means the principal (your original gift) is invested and kept intact (in some cases forever) generating income that gets spent on your chosen purpose year after year. Your gift keeps giving long after it’s made.
Non-endowed means the full gift is available to spend right away, for more immediate impact.
Either way, you’re deciding not just what you’re giving to, but how long your giving lasts.
Why give through a community foundation at all?
You could give directly to the ski club or the library. Plenty of people do, and that matters too. But giving through the foundation offers something different: professional investment management aimed at long-term growth, a permanent repository that can receive additional gifts from others who share your love of the same cause, and for local nonprofits – relief from the accounting and reporting burden of managing an endowment themselves.
In practice, it means your gift doesn’t just help once. It becomes part of something that keeps helping, long after the summer you made it.
Ready to talk about starting a fund? Contact us today!