Estate Gifts are a Gesture of Trust

For years, Susan Ugai had watched people leave her hometown to pursue careers and lives elsewhere.

"All these people we knew in North Platte had left," Ugai said. "None of them were there anymore. And the ones whose parents were still there, the kids were never coming back."

A 2002 meeting with Nebraska Community Foundation helped her understand the impact of that migration. There she learned about NCF's 2001 transfer of wealth study. All those people leaving North Platte? That was wealth leaving the community, potentially forever. And it was happening across the state.

"That land, those assets were definitely going to be lost," she said. "So, I could visualize it really easily for myself."

The most recent update to the transfer of wealth study in 2021 increased those figures. The next 50 years could see $950 billion transfer between generations.

Ugai herself had left North Platte after high school to study at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she earned her undergraduate degree in English and went on to obtain her law degree. After graduating, she served as North Platte's city attorney for a handful of years before joining the Nebraska Department of Justice as an assistant attorney general in the mid-1980s. She's still practicing law today for the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy.

Ugai joined NCF's board of directors in 2002 after that initial meeting, eventually serving three full terms. Over the course of those nine years, she witnessed incredible growth in the NCF network as more affiliated funds joined and more Nebraskans became aware of the nonprofit's mission to build upon existing assets to create an even greater Nebraska. It was unlike any role Ugai had held before, with meetings and tours in communities across the state where volunteers had been making impressive strides in community building.

"It was nice to go to those communities," she said. "And I think those communities liked us coming there."

The attorney's near-decade with the board cemented her appreciation for NCF and its unique approach to empowering smaller communities. The organization wasn't dropping into an area to tell residents what to do, instead it was giving local leaders the tools necessary to take their fate into their own hands. Ugai found peer learning opportunities particularly impactful, as they connected volunteers with one another on equal ground.

"I think what these communities will tell you is that they have certainly as much autonomy as they want," Ugai said. "Because nobody's making decisions for them on how much they give away, who they give it to, any of those kinds of things."

She decided long ago that she would be leaving her assets to causes close to her heart, and NCF is among them. She believes in the ability of affiliated fund leaders and NCF staff to make the right decisions in the future. Her estate gift, in the form of a beneficiary designation on an IRA, is a financial gesture of that trust.

"As NCF evolves, they will figure out what's the best way to spend that money for the organization," Ugai said. "So that's what it comes down to. I think you have to trust the organization that you're going to give it to."

Nebraska Community Foundation's Five to Thrive campaign asks you to consider leaving just five percent of your assets to your favorite hometown or to NCF to benefit all of our communities. If we all left five, that's well over $47 billion that could be reinvested in our communities over the next 10 years. When we all leave five, our hometowns thrive! Visit www.fivetothrivene.com to learn more!

For information on how you can give back to your hometown, contact Nebraska Community Foundation's Office of Planned Giving, 402.323.7330 or [email protected].