Ways to Give

Connecting Your Giving to Local Impact

As your community foundation, we’ll ensure that your generosity will impact the causes you care about most for generations to come.

We make giving easy and effective. We connect people with the causes they care about most. Individuals, families, and organizations trust us to align their generosity with local needs and opportunities. We partner with groups and communities to ensure gifts support meaningful projects right here in your community.

We also help people leave a legacy. Our estate planning services ensure your values and generosity continue to benefit future generations and lasting landscapes of west central Minnesota and White Earth Nation.

When you give to or through West Central Initiative, you build a more vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable region for everyone.

Meet Our Generosity Team

Rebecca Lynn Petersen

Director of Development & Philanthropic Services

218-998-1612

Contact Rebecca

Samantha VanWechel-Meyer

Community Philanthropy Officer

218-998-1619

Contact Samantha

Camille is smiling with long brown hair. She is wearing a white shirt and black blazer. She is standing in front of a green tree.

Camille Pearson Walz

Development & Philanthropic Services Officer

218-998-1627

Contact Camille

Rick Schara

Community Engagement Officer

218-998-1626

Contact Rick

Ways to Give

Why Partner with Us

When you choose West Central Initiative to steward your gifts, you’re investing in a courageous, collaborative, and deeply rooted partner, ensuring your generosity builds a thriving region for generations. As your philanthropic partner:

At West Central Initiative, our core purpose is empowering a thriving, sustainable region with abundant opportunity and a great quality of life. We maximize every dollar for the communities and causes you care about most.

We have deep relationships with our communities, city officials, and the nonprofits that serve our region. We’re embedded in the community and understand our region’s changing needs, from child care access to workforce housing to climate resilience. We facilitate cross-sector solutions with local governments, nonprofits, businesses, and residents. This ensures that gifts are invested strategically, with lived expertise guiding decisions.

Your gifts will be managed responsibly and create ripples of impact for generations to come. We have decades of experience in:

Endowment management and fund stewardship.
Grantmaking and program design that centers on equity and community input.
Transparent reporting and communication with donors about the outcomes of their generosity.

We convene regional partners for collective action and focus on long-term strategies, not isolated projects. This ensures their legacy of giving continues to grow and create new opportunities.

Unlike national entities, we’re your neighbors! We’re ready to listen, collaborate, and connect you with charities and causes that align with your values and goals. As your partner, we look forward to your phone calls, emails, or in-person visits. We’re available to discuss your hopes for building a better region whenever you’re ready.

It isn’t just those with great sums of money who can do great things.
We all have resources we can invest in our community. As a regional community foundation, I know that West Central Initiative will carefully steward my investments in the region long into the future.
Beth Grosen

Join the Lasting Landscapes Society

Your legacy has the power to shape the future of our region for generations to come. By planning a gift to support one of West Central Initiative’s regional endowments or an endowment for a local nonprofit or community held at West Central Initiative, you join a growing movement of visionary donors who are helping our people and communities thrive—today and tomorrow.

The Lasting Landscapes Legacy Society recognizes individuals and families who have made a lasting commitment to our region through either a future gift in their estate plan or a major lifetime endowed gift to West Central Initiative.
Membership is open to anyone who has included West Central Initiative in their estate plans or made a lifetime gift of $10,000 or more to a permanent endowed fund at West Central Initiative. This might be a gift to support West Central Initiative, or it can be a gift to a local nonprofit’s endowment held at West Central Initiative.

Lasting Landscape Legacy Society Members

Pamela Bernstein
Carole Mitchell
Beth Grosen
John Molinaro
Inga M. Johnson
Charlotte Moline
Deloris Barnack Kenner
Steve Guttormson and Nancy Swenson
Lynn Middleton-Koller
Rebecca Petersen and Mark A. Solie
Floyd and Harriet Miller

Ready to join the list? Connect with our generosity team today.

Recent Generosity & Impact News

Legacy Fund Carries Forward Claire Ann Shover Nursery School’s Vision for Early Childhood Education in Fergus Falls
Early Care and Development Foundation of Becker County Takes on Child-Care Shortage
Waves of Generosity Flow from Opposite Ends of Lake Minnewaska