Published Sunday

Published Sunday, April 18, 2004

Omaha World-Herald

Midlands Voices: Nebraska is a model of rural philanthropy

BY RICK FOSTER

The writer is vice president for food systems and rural development at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Mich. He grew up on a farm in western Iowa and from 1982-1992 was on the faculty of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Over the next 50 years, roughly $94 billion will be passed down from one generation of rural Nebraskans to the next - much of it occurring in the next 20 years.

Some 750,000 Nebraskans live in rural communities of 13,000 or fewer. This translates into estates of roughly $125,000 for every man, woman and child in rural Nebraska, using today's U.S. Census population figures. If something is not done, however, most of this money - and the goods and services it buys - will be lost to charitable donations outside the state, state and federal estate taxes or to heirs living in other parts of the country.

A movement is taking shape that will help keep the state from losing at least some of the assets earned from past generations of rural Nebraskans. The Nebraska Community Foundation hopes to help small communities attract at least 5 percent of the $94 billion exchange and redirect it toward those rural Nebraska towns that desperately need an infusion of funds to survive.

They are doing this not by offering "handouts" but by establishing local affiliated funds that will allow those planning for retirement and beyond to designate part of their estates to remain for the long-term benefit of their hometowns.

In the 10 years since it was established in 1993, the Nebraska Community Foundation and its affiliated funds have reinvested nearly $40 million in the state's communities and organizations. Current assets total $18 million, with another $17 million expected through wills, bequests and planned gifts.

The Nebraska Community Foundation's board and staff recognize that changing the economic prospects of rural communities requires more than traditional charitable giving focused on "quality-of-life" improvements. It requires investments that improve the economic prospects of residents of those rural places. And it requires a new way to address old problems.

Rural America has always served as a wellspring for ingenuity. There are many outstanding examples of how rural communities would use additional assets. One program, Home Town Competitiveness, started in Valley County and now is now being implemented in Hooker, Grant and Thomas Counties in the Sand Hills, Knox County in northeastern Nebraska, Stuart and Atkinson Counties in north-central Nebraska and Grant and Imperial in southwest Nebraska.

The Nebraska Community Foundation has joined with the Heartland Center for Leadership Development and the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, all based in Nebraska. This uniquely Nebraska approach to rural community-building drew 53 participants from 18 states and three countries to the first Home Town Competitiveness academy in Omaha this year.

The Hometown program is a "come-back/give-back" approach to rural revitalization. It encourages young people and entrepreneurs to come back to their communities to raise their families and run their businesses so they can build new wealth in rural places. It also encourages rural people to give back to their communities by intentionally developing a strong local program that recruits and supports a diverse group of local leaders. And it encourages them to give back in a charitable way by creating community endowments.

Nebraska needs more people in its hometowns who are willing to give back by including the community in their wills. And just as important, Nebraska's communities need more people who are willing to ask their friends and neighbors to do that. This is just one program that builds on the strength of rural people to make their own solutions. Imagine what might happen if more of the significant wealth created in rural Nebraska stayed in the state.

To some, rerouting wealth back into rural Nebraska might sound ambitious, and they're right. But attracting 5 percent is a very reasonable goal. In reality, 5 percent represents nearly $5 billion in endowed, private funds for rural Nebraska communities.

With that kind of money available, the Nebraska Community Foundation and rural Nebraskans are making a statement: "At least some of the money made in rural America should stay here for the long-term benefit of the community." Place does make a difference. And living and working in rural Nebraska makes a difference.

So hats off to the Nebraska Community Foundation, its partners and the people of the state. You are once again demonstrating that "the good life" doesn't come easy: It requires both commitment to and investment in people and communities.

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