Guiding Principles

The 10 principles below reflect the Rice Lake Community Health Foundation’s beliefs about the role of philanthropy and the impact we want this Foundation to have.  The principles guide what we do, why we do it, and how we do it.

While many of them are fundamental to the way we operate, we will remain open to amending them as we grow and learn more about our important work.

1. This is a community foundation, driven by our health needs, interests and passions of the Rice Lake area community.  Our Foundation covers a 35 mile radius of Rice Lake, Wisconsin.
2. Philanthropy plays an important, but limited role.
3. We are funders, partners and shapers; we rely on others to act and implement.
4. We must be humble and mindful in our actions and words.  We seek and heed the counsel of outside voices where appropriate.
5. We consider our grantees as valued partners, and we will treat the ultimate beneficiaries of our work with respect.
6. Delivering results with the resources we have been given is of the utmost importance.  We seek and share information about those results.
7. We demand ethical behavior from ourselves and others.
8. We treat each other as valued colleagues.
9. Meeting our mission – to increase health-related benefits and opportunities for our community – requires great stewardship of the money we have available.
10. We leave room for growth and change.