Our Leadership Circle Donors
We recognize Individuals who contribute $500 or more and Businesses who contribute $750 or more annually as Leadership Circle Donors.
We work to gather the resources to create positive and lasting change. The type of lasting change that empowers people to build better lives for themselves and their families resulting in a stronger Door County community. As Leadership Circle donors with United Way of Door County, you are investing in the efforts of collaborative groups of professionals, volunteers, and community members. Together they have not only identified the needs of our area, they have also prioritized those needs and the financial resources available to our strategic partner programs that are helping to build a better community. It’s not just about supporting our annual campaign. As a Leadership Circle Donor, you provide support to the continual discovery, formation, education, execution, and evaluation of programs that provide real solutions to the needs of our area, year after year, through United Way’s key impact areas.
Our Alexis de Tocqueville Society
In 2017, United Way of Door County added the Alexis de Tocqueville Society. This is for Individuals we donate more than $10,000 per year to United Way.
A little history on United Way and the Tocqueville Society. Founded in 1984, the United Way Tocqueville Society is an opportunity for passionate individuals to become more deeply involved in United Way’s mission.
The Tocqueville Society recognizes local philanthropic leaders and volunteer champions in the United States, France and Romania who have devoted time, talent, and funds to create long-lasting changes by tackling our communities’ most serious issues.
Origins of the Tocqueville Society
Only 26 years old when he came to the United States and Canada in 1831, Alexis Charles-Henri de Tocqueville traveled extensively, recording his observations of life in the young nations.
Though he only spent nine months in North America, he gleaned many profound insights about American society. His observations, readings and discussions with eminent Americans formed the basis of Democracy in America, a detailed study of American society and politics published in two volumes, in 1835 and 1840.
Tocqueville recognized, applauded and immortalized North American voluntary action on behalf of the common good. He wrote: “I must say that I have seen Americans make a great deal of real sacrifices to the public welfare; and have noticed a hundred instances in which they hardly ever failed to lend a faithful support to one another,” eloquently capturing the essence of personal philanthropy that persists almost three centuries later.
The observations on philanthropy made by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831 are true today; North Americans understand that advancing the common good means creating opportunities for a better life for all. The name Tocqueville Society was chosen because of Alexis de Tocqueville’s admiration for the spirit of voluntary association and effort toward its advancement.
To read the full history of Alexis, his family and the Tocqueville Society, visit United Way Worldwide at: www.unitedway.org
