Family first
We treat every applicant as a relative, not a case number. Dignity is a condition of the grant, not a bonus.
About us
It started with a coffee can at a reunion.
Our origin
In the summer of 2016, at a reunion in a rented hall outside Dubuque, Helen Stoessel-Braun passed a coffee can around eighty folding chairs. A cousin she'd met twice had lost her husband and, with him, the income that kept her in her house. By the end of the night the can held $3,140 and a promise: next time, we won't wait for a funeral to notice.
The Stoessel Foundation was incorporated the following spring as a 501(c)(3) run entirely by volunteers. Ten years on, the coffee can has become a fund that has moved more than $412,000 to Stoessels in 31 states and six countries — but the rules haven't changed. Anyone who carries the name, married into it, or was raised by it can ask. Anyone who can help, does.
We are not a wealthy family. We're a large one that decided to act like a family on purpose.
What we hold to
Our values
Generosity in the open
We publish where every dollar lands. Small gifts, honestly accounted for, are the whole engine.
Legacy & heritage
We collect and preserve Stoessel stories, records, and recipes — help for today, memory for tomorrow.
Volunteer leadership
Our board
No one on the board draws a salary. Terms are three years, and every seat is elected at the reunion by anyone who shows up.
HS
Helen Stoessel-Braun
Founder & Board Chair
Retired schoolteacher from Dubuque who started the fund with a coffee can at the 2016 reunion.
KD
Karl D. Stoessel
Treasurer
CPA in Milwaukee. Reconciles every grant and publishes the quarterly ledger the family reads over breakfast.
AS
Anneliese Stoessel
Grants Director
Social worker in Portland. Reads every application and calls each applicant personally within 48 hours.
PS
Peter Stoessel-Okafor
Community Secretary
Runs the mutual aid directory and the annual reunion from Atlanta, with a spreadsheet he refuses to explain.