Evjue Foundation

Evjue Foundation

The Evjue Foundation was formed as the philanthropic arm of The Capital Times, the newspaper William T. Evjue founded and edited for decades as a leading voice of Wisconsin progressivism. Upon his death in 1970, the William T. Evjue Charitable Trust was established to hold his majority stake in the newspaper company, with foundation grants funded by dividends from that entity. The Lussier family—descendants of Evjue's former business manager—now steward the foundation, with James D. Lussier serving as President and Dawn Lussier and Laura Lussier-Lee as Directors. The foundation operates as a grantmaking institution focused almost exclusively on Dane County, Wisconsin. Its primary vehicles are direct cash grants to 501(c)(3) organizations, favoring capital campaigns, program support, and seed funding for new initiatives. Grant recipients span basic-needs providers such as The River Food Pantry and Porchlight, arts institutions like the Overture Center, and educational nonprofits. A defining feature is the foundation's structural commitment to journalism philanthropy: it has been a consistent funder of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The Capital Times publisher Paul Fanlund serves as Vice President, reinforcing the operational tie between the newspaper's commercial strategies and the foundation's annual distribution capacity. The foundation does not publicly disclose total assets, but its grantmaking history provides a credible activity signal. Distributions average several million dollars annually. In recent years, notable capital commitments have supported the Madison Public Library Foundation's redevelopment projects and Madison College's Goodman South Campus expansion. September 2023: The foundation announced a multi-year grant to the Center for Black Excellence and Culture, a new Madison institution serving Dane County's Black community (per foundation's disclosures, September 2023). The board maintains ties to peer organizations through shared directorships: board member Anne Lucke holds a relationship with the University of Wisconsin Foundation, while the foundation collaborates regularly with the Madison Community Foundation on overlapping community-development priorities. The foundation's architecture differs from peer grantmakers in one critical respect: its funding is not drawn from a diversified endowment portfolio but from an operating business in a structurally declining industry. This creates a dual risk-reward profile—grantmaking capacity rises and falls with the commercial fortunes of Madison Media Partners, the joint venture between the Evjue Trust and Lee Enterprises that now operates The Capital Times and the Wisconsin State Journal. The foundation's long-term viability thus depends on both the newspaper's digital transition and the trust's governance structure, a concentration that would give most institutional allocators pause.