Women's Fund for the Fox Valley Region

Women's Fund for the Fox Valley Region

Julie Keller founded the Women's Fund for the Fox Valley Region in 1995 as a grantmaking vehicle to improve life for women and girls across Northeast Wisconsin. The fund is structured as a supporting organization of the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, which provides administrative and investment management infrastructure. Instead of originating from a single family balance sheet, the endowment aggregates capital from individual donors, donor-advised funds, and corporate partners including the J. J. Keller Foundation and Plexus Corp. The organization deploys capital exclusively through grants across advocacy, education, and health. Since inception, it has awarded over $2.6 million (per Altss research). The grantmaking targets systemic barriers in the Fox Valley region of Wisconsin, and the fund also operates the Brighter Female Futures (B.F.F.) program, a young professional network that builds a pipeline of female philanthropists. The geographic focus remains tightly concentrated on Northeast Wisconsin, specifically the Fox Valley communities around Appleton. The fund is a member of the global Women's Funding Network, connecting its local work to a broader alliance of women's foundations. The fund's known assets include a directly owned office property at 4455 W Lawrence Street in Appleton, managed endowment and donor-advised fund pools, and a controlled affiliate — Community Real Estate & Personal Property Foundation — which allows it to accept, hold, and liquidate complex non-cash gifts. The board includes corporate partners Heather Beresford of Plexus Corp., Teresa Knuth of NAI Pfefferle, and Sarah Paulson of Valkyrie Financial. The structural differentiator lies in how the fund converts real estate and other illiquid assets into grant capital. Rather than immediately selling complex gifts, the affiliate entity can hold and manage those assets, creating a distinct acceptance pipeline compared to a standard foundation that relies solely on cash or marketable securities. This architecture lets the fund capture value from non-traditional sources without disrupting its core community-grant rhythm.