Boone County is what rural dreams are made of. Drive through Petersburg (population 329) and you’ll see the county’s latest achievement—a public-school-turned-multi-purpose-community space known as The Village Campus.
In its largest community, Albion (population 1,703), you’ll see Boone Beginnings, a world-class early childhood development center and one of the community’s greatest points of pride. You’re also likely to notice residents of all ages and abilities enjoying the Fairgrounds and Fuller Park loops, nearly two miles of eight-foot-wide concrete trail—a need revealed via a 2016 community-wide survey.
If you’re lucky, there’s a rodeo or concert going on at the Boone County Agriculture and Education Center. The impressive 37,500-square-foot structure is drawing visitors from miles around—and importantly, they are spending their hard-earned money in Boone County.
Boone County Foundation Fund (BCFF) has been a critical catalyst, player, organizer, and funder in each and every one of these projects. After over 20 years of working in community development, they know a thing or two about the kind of patience and persistence required to pull off such monumental dreams. It also requires confidence and skill, something local volunteers have worked hard to build through countless Nebraska Community Foundation trainings and events. Over the years, Boone County has taken on its fair share of fundraising challenges, starting with the one that established the Boone County Foundation Fund in 2002—a $100,000 incentive from Jim and Elaine Wolf, a local couple who cared deeply about the future of their hometown.
Then, in 2016, another challenge: if volunteers could raise $200,000, they’d receive $100,000 to grow their unrestricted endowment, an invaluable tool for the growth and progress Boone County has seen over the past couple of decades. No surprise, volunteers rose to the challenge.
With several more major capital projects completed in recent years, BCFF is once again setting its sights on growing its unrestricted endowment, which currently stands at $2.4 million. The Give Boldly Challenge, a Homegrown Challenge Grant initiative, could grow unrestricted assets by another $450,000.
Volunteers have raised and granted millions of dollars to make life in Boone County better. Considering only 5,379 people live in the county, one might begin to wonder—how much more do folks have to give? About $596 million over the next 10 years according to NCF’s latest Transfer of Wealth Study. That’s the amount estimated to transfer from one generation to the next as parents leave their estates to their heirs.
Boone County Foundation Fund knows that even a small percentage could help the community get even more audacious about the projects it takes on in the future.
“While it would be great to have all of it stay here, even with 5% we can make significant improvements,” said Tina Stokes, a member of BCFF’s advisory committee.
With 19 planned gifts already confirmed conservatively valued at $2.5 million, Boone County is well on its way
