Rural Nebraska town dreams big, far exceeds fund-raising goal for local improvements

Leigh, population 400, is located 25 miles north of Columbus and boasts a new high school and nearby lake and golf course. (Courtesy of Nebraska Community Foundation)

LEIGH, Nebraska — This small town in east-central Nebraska is pushing back on the narrative that rural communities are dying.

Leigh supporters, including more than a dozen Leigh High School alumni, recently went way beyond a challenge to raise $200,000 for future projects in the community of 400, 25 miles north of Columbus.

The successful fund drive began with 14 alums pledging $200,000, which led to a matching “challenge grant” of $50,000 from the Nebraska Community Foundation.

But the fundraising kept going, and now the Leigh Legacy Fund, the local foundation, has increased to $840,000. That will provide about $45,000 a year in interest to be granted for projects in Leigh, from sprucing up the town to potentially funding a local early childhood education program or technology upgrades in the community or local school.

A future “visioning” meeting in the community will decide exactly how the money will be spent.

“You have to dream big, and you have to be willing to work hard. But you’d be amazed at what you can accomplish,” said Justine Fischer, a local English/drama teacher who chairs the Leigh Legacy Fund.

The community had a local fundraising foundation in the past, but it had grown stagnant, with only about $10,000 in the fund four years ago.

“There was a time when it was the ‘we’s’ and the ‘they’s’ … people were not working well together,” said Karen Hillen, assistant city clerk in Leigh and a 45-year resident of the community.

That’s when the Leigh Legacy Fund opted to become affiliated with the Nebraska Community Foundation, a 30-year-old organization that helps dozens of communities across the state “achieve their dreams” via local foundations and givers.

Nebraska Community Foundation endowments

The Nebraska Community Foundation now holds unrestricted endowments for communities that total $67 million, which is double the amount it held five years ago.

Fifty of the community-based funds have annual payouts of at least $10,000 per year, which the foundation considers enough to be a catalyst for growth. Sixteen of the unrestricted funds have payouts of at least $50,000 per year.

In recent years, the Community Foundation has begun offering “challenge grants” to local communities, providing, in Leigh’s case, $50,000 if local donors could raise $200,000.

Jeff Yost, the foundation’s president and CEO, said the challenge grants, which were offered to 19 communities besides Leigh, serve as a “catalyst” for local foundations to kick-start fundraising to “start something new, save something important or adapt to the future.”

Leigh’s new fund is what’s called an “unrestricted endowment,” meaning that the money can be used for any community endeavor, and is not restricted to a single project.

“They can use it for 100 small things, or one big one,” Yost said.

That, he said, is the beauty of an unrestricted fund because it allows a community to decide its future needs, whether it be saving a local nursing home, helping a local art museum or children’s museum or, in the case of one foundation, repairing the storm-damaged Burwell Rodeo Arena, a major draw for visitors.

In Leigh, how the yearly grant funds will be spent will be decided by a series of community “visioning” meetings, Fischer said.

The last such meetings, she said, resulted in townspeople seeking to enhance the recreational facilities in the community, which include a swimming pool, a city park/campground, a golf course and the Maple Creek Reservoir.

Already, Fischer said, some of the Leigh Legacy Fund has helped an affiliated group of high school youths, the Youth Advisory Committee, finance the addition of landscaping and umbrella-shaded picnic tables at the local swimming pool.

That Youth Advisory Committee, which includes about 45 local kids that Fischer organized, holds an annual Christmas Festival to raise funds for community improvements. The new “Welcome to Leigh” banners along main streets, for instance, were funded by the youth group, along with a portion of improvements at the school ballfield.

The youth group, Fischer said, gets kids involved and invested in Leigh. Their activities include attending local town council and school board meetings.

As for kick-starting the Leigh Legacy Fund, a big assist goes to two Leigh High graduates: Greg Vasek, a retired Lincoln businessman, and Mike Wilke of Stanton.

Vasek is a former member of the Nebraska Community Foundation’s board of directors, so he knew the potential in activating local givers. He and Wilke identified 25 fellow alums no longer living in Leigh who they felt might help. Their work led to 14 families of alums giving the initial $200,000.

“Leigh was a great place to grow up. I contribute my success in life to the community, the teachers, the farmers who employed me, the family friends, the people who you looked up to,” Vasek said.

“They taught me a lot, how to live and how to live right,” he said, calling his contribution “a payback” to his hometown.

How a community’s foundation went from $10,000 in assets to over $800,000 in four short years is a story of how “success breeds more success,” Fischer said. Donations have come from 14 states, and funds continue to come in, she said.

“We’re bucking the narrative that small towns are dying,” Fischer said.

Her advice for other communities seeking to duplicate the progress made by Leigh: “Focus on what you have and not what you don’t have.… Sometimes people get in a rut — ‘Our small town doesn’t have this, our small town doesn’t have that.…’

“Focus on the good things in your community,” she said. “Dream big. And just be positive about what’s possible.”

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