UNO Fund Student Scholarship Stories – Reagan Folda
As a student in the Sign Language Interpreting program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Reagan Folda understands the importance of a clear and
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Gifts through the UNK Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
UNK has a proud tradition of excellence and support when it comes to Loper Athletics and enjoy great success in all sports.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska at Kearney and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
UNK AA has been working since 1906 to promote communication and interaction among more than 40,000 alumni, students, faculty, administrators and friends of the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Gifts through the N Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
Husker athletic programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are a source of pride for alumni and Nebraskans throughout the state and around the world.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
NAA is a nonprofit organization that connects alumni with Dear Old Nebraska U, and with each other, for the betterment of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Gifts through the Innovation Funds let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
There are many ways to give including employer matching, payroll giving, donor advised funds, tangible property, grain, stocks and more.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska Medical Center and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
The mission of the UNMC Alumni Relations Office is to serve and engage with learners and graduates through effective communications, the formation of meaningful relationships, and opportunities to invest in the advancement of the university through gifts of time, talent, and treasure.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Gifts through the UNO Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
Our athletes are competing at the Division I level in collegiate sports, not only enhance the visibility of UNO, but also to provide great benefits to all of Omaha.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska at Omaha and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
UNO AA is an organization focused on strengthening connections with more than 100,000 UNO alumni, students and friends from all over the world.
Nebraska Medicine and its research and education partner, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, share the same mission: to lead the world in transforming lives to create a healthy future for all individuals and communities through premier educational programs, innovative research and extraordinary patient care.
These funds support innovative initiatives at Nebraska Medicine that allow the academic health network to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
There are many ways to give including employer matching, payroll giving, donor advised funds, tangible property, grain, stocks and more.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact at Nebraska Medicine? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
The mission of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska is to transform the lives of young children by improving their learning and development.
Every day, nearly a billion people in the world do not have enough safe and nutritious food to lead healthy and active lives. Many of them also lack access to enough clean water to meet their needs. By 2050, our global food demand will double to meet the needs of nearly 10 billion people, making water and food security one of the most urgent global challenges of our time.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
Your giving to this area enables the president’s office to quickly direct resources to various university projects and areas across the system as needs arise.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Gifts through the UNK Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Gifts through the N Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Gifts through the Innovation Funds let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Gifts through the UNO Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
Add your voice and your support to see the power of the crowd in action.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Gifts through the UNK Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
UNK has a proud tradition of excellence and support when it comes to Loper Athletics and enjoy great success in all sports.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska at Kearney and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
UNK AA has been working since 1906 to promote communication and interaction among more than 40,000 alumni, students, faculty, administrators and friends of the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Gifts through the N Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
Husker athletic programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are a source of pride for alumni and Nebraskans throughout the state and around the world.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
NAA is a nonprofit organization that connects alumni with Dear Old Nebraska U, and with each other, for the betterment of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Gifts through the Innovation Funds let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
There are many ways to give including employer matching, payroll giving, donor advised funds, tangible property, grain, stocks and more.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska Medical Center and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
The mission of the UNMC Alumni Relations Office is to serve and engage with learners and graduates through effective communications, the formation of meaningful relationships, and opportunities to invest in the advancement of the university through gifts of time, talent, and treasure.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Gifts through the UNO Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
Our athletes are competing at the Division I level in collegiate sports, not only enhance the visibility of UNO, but also to provide great benefits to all of Omaha.
Find specific areas to support within your college, department, program or area of interest.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact to the University of Nebraska at Omaha and its students? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
UNO AA is an organization focused on strengthening connections with more than 100,000 UNO alumni, students and friends from all over the world.
Nebraska Medicine and its research and education partner, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, share the same mission: to lead the world in transforming lives to create a healthy future for all individuals and communities through premier educational programs, innovative research and extraordinary patient care.
These funds support innovative initiatives at Nebraska Medicine that allow the academic health network to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
There are many ways to give including employer matching, payroll giving, donor advised funds, tangible property, grain, stocks and more.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact at Nebraska Medicine? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
The mission of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska is to transform the lives of young children by improving their learning and development.
Every day, nearly a billion people in the world do not have enough safe and nutritious food to lead healthy and active lives. Many of them also lack access to enough clean water to meet their needs. By 2050, our global food demand will double to meet the needs of nearly 10 billion people, making water and food security one of the most urgent global challenges of our time.
Looking for ways to make the greatest impact? Here are some great options.
No matter your circumstances. No matter your age or financial situation. If leaving a legacy is important to you, we can help through planned giving.
Your giving to this area enables the president’s office to quickly direct resources to various university projects and areas across the system as needs arise.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Gifts through the UNK Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Gifts through the N Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Gifts through the Innovation Funds let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
The greatest needs of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Gifts through the UNO Fund let you make a bigger difference on campus, your college and students.
Add your voice and your support to see the power of the crowd in action.
Home > small-business
Assistant Director of Communications
Contact: [email protected]
NBDC seeks to lessen the impact
Hui Ru Ng might not have boarded a flight to Nebraska if not for Tommy Lee.
Ru (as her friends call her) was raised in Malaysia and dreamed of traveling to the U.S. to enroll at a college that was equally affordable and reputable. She also dreamed of seeing the sun-swept landscape exhibited in the since-canceled TV show “Tommy Lee Goes to College,” which chronicled the former Mötley Crüe drummer’s uninspired attempt to assimilate at Nebraska’s land grant institution.
Ru ultimately chose the University of Nebraska at Omaha and boarded an airplane for the first time.
“Back home, it’s summer all year,” she said. “When I got to the airport, I was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t what I thought.’ But I grew to love this place because of the people. I will never forget how Nebraskans supported me.”
After completing her undergraduate degree, Ru applied to be a graduate assistant at the Nebraska Business Development Center located at UNO. Oluwaseun Olaore (Seun, as his friends call him) applied around the same time.
A project director back home in Nigeria, Olaore foresaw a professional ceiling unless he had an advanced degree.
Ru and Seun’s two years with the NBDC coincided with a 100-year flood and a COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly the vulnerabilities of the Midwestern economy were tested like never before.
“This whole experience actually made me realize that I want to start a small business,” said Ru after having experienced a frightening two-part course on the financial realities of small-business ownership in times of crisis. “You get inspired by clients, see their innovation and passion.”
Seun too came away from this experience reaffirmed in his commitment to the industry.
“I’ve been able to help business owners figure out a way around these problems,” he said. “This hasn’t scared me away. It has strengthened me.”
This hasn’t scared me away. It has strengthened me.
- NBDC graduate assistant Oluwaseun Olaore
Since its founding in 1977, NBDC has operated with a statewide mission out of its office in UNO’s College of Business Administration. For nearly four decades, Robert Bernier shepherded the center as its director.
“My opinion is that small business is more important to Nebraska, more important to our communities than anything,” said Catherine Lang, assistant dean of the UNO College of Business Administration who took over as NBDC state director for Bernier in 2016. “Nebraska small-business owners are innovative, resilient and tenacious. They care about their community.”
With Lang’s guidance, NBDC has assisted more than 8,500 clients — everything from fire-rated window providers to monarch butterfly habitat conservers — and helped them obtain in excess of $590 million in government contracts. All told, NBDC had a $1.9 billion impact on Nebraska’s economy over just the last four years, either directly creating or saving nearly 6,000 jobs.
If the NBDC is a tent, there are five support poles beneath: the Small Business Development Center, the Procurement Technical Assistance Center, Innovation and Technology Assistance, Professional and Organizational Development, and NU Connections.
There are centers in Chadron, Grand Island, Kearney, Lincoln, McCook, Norfolk, North Platte, Omaha, Scottsbluff and Wayne.
As Lang puts it, “We are kind of campus agnostic. We serve the entire state.”
One-on-one discussions are confidential and available free of charge. Proposals are tailored to the client.
“We work with them to develop their business plan,” Lang said. “That way they’re 100 percent intimately knowledgeable about financials, market research, everything.”
Located in UNO’s Mammel Hall, the center can tap into the university’s student body and faculty. “There’s a nice little symbiotic relationship between the academic world and the business world,” said UNO economics professor Christopher Decker.
Bernier deserves a lion’s share of the credit for the success of the graduate assistant program, Lang contends.
At any given time, Ru juggles a dozen clients on the innovation and technology side of the operation, helping them identify which grants to pursue. Olaore works with the small-business development center to help companies flesh out business plans, construct financial projections and apply for loans.
“They hire a lot of international students in the office,” Ru said, mentioning that three continents are currently represented by graduate assistants. “We have great diversity.”
We are kind of campus agnostic. We serve the entire state.
- NBDC State Director Catherine Lang
When the pandemic arrived, NBDC was prepared.
“We had to be ready,” Lang said. “Businesses all over the state are contacting us for help — clients who are trying to navigate this whole CARES act, SBA loans, unemployment insurance, IRS rules.”
The inspired work has left an impact on those providing it.
“These people are so passionate,” Ru said. “You learn a lot from them.”
Lang loves how interconnected the NBDC is, that resources are available no matter where a company sprouts from. And indeed, there is an irony almost poetic about salt-of-the-earth Nebraskans turning to students born thousands of miles away for guidance through the all-encompassing storm.
“I know we’re just a sliver of the entire ecosystem of Nebraska,” Lang said. “But I’m so very proud. We are always going to do the best we can.”
As a student in the Sign Language Interpreting program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Reagan Folda understands the importance of a clear and
As a full-time social worker, Matthew Beckmann works every day to assist those who most need support. In the course of working on behalf of
“I think education is very important, and all of these young people need to have a career. That’s our future. The young people become educated and good citizens.”
1010 Lincoln Mall, Suite 300
Lincoln, NE 68508
800-432-3216
[email protected]
The University of Nebraska Foundation (EIN: 47-0379839) is exempt from federal income tax under the provisions of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.