# Dahl Family Foundation

Dahl Family Foundation is an Endowment / Foundation based in La Crosse, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** La Crosse, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** La Crosse, WI, United States
- **Founded:** 2004
- **Assets under management:** <$10 million (Altss estimate)

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

James H. Dahl founded the Dahl Family Foundation in 2004, after a career that included senior roles at Drexel Burnham and the co-founding of Rock Creek Capital, an investment firm specializing in distressed assets. The foundation's wealth draws on two distinct streams: the family's automotive dealership group anchored by Dahl Automotive in Onalaska, Wisconsin, and the proceeds from decades of structured-finance and public-market investing. Harry J. Dahl and Andrew J. Dahl—the latter also serving as Dealer Principal of Dahl Automotive—are active officers, making the foundation a second-generation stewardship vehicle. The foundation operates a straightforward grant-making strategy with no direct-investment or program-related-investment overlay evident in public filings. Grants concentrate in three areas: education, human services, and general philanthropy, with a geographic footprint that follows the family's personal and business ties—southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, and portions of Tennessee. The foundation's disclosed asset base is modest. An Altss analysis of the foundation's most recent publicly available Form 990-PF points to total assets in the low single-digit millions, structured conservatively and supplemented by the family's broader balance sheet, which includes a Florida timberland portfolio, US government securities, and residential real estate in New York. Adjacent to the foundation, the Dahl family's civic engagement extends into leadership roles with the Rotary Club of La Crosse and the Wisconsin Automobile & Truck Dealers Association, where Andrew Dahl is a board member. The foundation's structural differentiator is its tight coupling to an active, multi-generational operating business. Unlike endowments that professionalize with outside CIOs, the Dahl Family Foundation has no separate investment staff; grant-making and asset management decisions appear to flow directly through family officers. This architecture keeps decision velocity extremely high for a foundation of its size—the family can approve a community grant without committee friction—but also ties the foundation's cadence entirely to the attention bandwidth of a family still deeply involved in running its core automotive operations.

## Sectors

- Education
- Human Services
- Philanthropy & Grantmaking

## People

- James H. Dahl — Founder
- Harry J. Dahl — President
- Andrew J. Dahl — Vice President

## Questions

### Does the foundation make program-related investments or direct deals?

No. Based on publicly available tax filings, the Dahl Family Foundation operates exclusively as a grant-making private foundation. There is no indication of program-related investments (PRIs), direct private-company stakes, or co-investment activity on the foundation's balance sheet.

### How is the foundation related to Dahl Automotive?

The foundation is legally separate from Dahl Automotive and Rock Creek Capital, but the relationship is close operational. Andrew J. Dahl serves simultaneously as Vice President of the foundation and Dealer Principal of Dahl Automotive, while Harry J. Dahl leads the foundation. The foundation's grant-making geography tracks the dealership group's community footprint.

## Related profiles

- [Sewell Family Foundation](https://altss.com/profile/sewell-family-foundation)
- [Namyang Savings Bank](https://altss.com/profile/namyang-savings-bank)

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Last updated: 2026-08-11T02:43:31.692Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/dahl-family-foundation

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