Village Teaming Up with Community Foundation

Want to have the new Egg Harbor public library named after you? You can have the naming rights for a donation of $500,000. Don’t have that in your pocket at the moment? You can have naming rights for either the Visitor Center or Business Center for a mere $100,000 donation for each.

The Village of Egg Harbor has released an architectural rendering and floor plan for the planned library/community center/visitor center and is making a renewed push for the capital campaign to raise money for the project.

At the Oct. 13 Egg Harbor Village Board meeting, the Door County Community Foundation will be introduced as the new partner in the campaign, said village Administrator Josh Van Lieshout.

Van Lieshout said he could probably write a book on how not to create a capital campaign, and that is why Bret Bicoy and the Community Foundation are stepping in to help with tasks the village just doesn’t know how to deal with, such as accepting donations of stocks and land rather than money.

“They know how to deal with that stuff,” Van Lieshout said. “They also have the infrastructure in place for multi-year pledges. They know how to do that. We could figure it out, but we would be reinventing the wheel. Bret Bicoy and the foundation have resources we don’t have.”

The Community Foundation will not be involved in raising money for the project, Van Lieshout said. That still rests with the village.

The village also thought having the Community Foundation involved would help communicate to the larger Door County community that even though this building is in the village of Egg Harbor, it will benefit the greater community.

“It’s more than a village asset. It’s a community asset, for the village, town and county,” Van Lieshout.

The Village Board meets at 6 pm Monday, Oct. 13.