Unrestricted gift illustrates donor’s gratitude

Why does Sue Schuerman give back to the University of Nebraska Medical Center? Because she’s grateful for the things it gave her first: 

• A great career in a field she loves, physical therapy. 
• A great education. She earned her bachelor’s degree at UNMC, and later, while working there as a clinician and researcher, she took advantage of its tuition benefit to earn her doctorate and joined the faculty. “I just loved teaching there,” said Schuerman, “loved the faculty, loved working with them, and that made me feel quite warm and fuzzy to UNMC, as you can guess.” 
• A great team. She felt an amazing atmosphere, she said, as a clinician, researcher and assistant professor. “I really benefited from that,” she said. “I loved that.” 
• A great husband. She met Raymond Records, M.D., at UNMC. He was chair of the department of ophthalmology and visual sciences from 1969 to 1989. They moved to Las Vegas in 2000. Schuerman then taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. (Records was just doing some consulting at that point.) He died two years ago, so she returned to Nebraska, her home state. 

She’s grateful to be back in Nebraska. She lives in Lincoln, not far from her hometown of Clatonia. She is retired. She has a garden, two dogs and many family members that keep her busy. She volunteers for the Nebraska State Museum and for the Master Gardeners. She started beekeeping this past spring. Schuerman had a great time this past fall at the Burnett Society tailgate and looks forward to attending the group’s other events. Her husband also was a Burnett Society member. 

Her planned gift will benefit the physical therapy department in UNMC’s College of Allied Health Professions because, she said, she knows how important it is to have a physical therapist if you need one and because she knows from personal experience that UNMC “is really trying hard to meet the needs of the state of Nebraska.” 

Her gift will be unrestricted, which means that she’ll let the leaders there decide how to use the money instead of designating how it should be used herself. 

“Having taught for, oh, my gosh, from ’91 to ’99 at UNMC and then at UNLV from 2000 to 2015,” she said, “I came to see that while it’s so nice to give a gift — and I understand the passions of people who give a gift for specific reasons because of the things that are so meaningful to them — sometimes that money goes to something the department really doesn’t need at the time, and it kind of hamstrings them by the gift. 

“I really think the department and the school together can better judge how to use money that’s given to them.” 

Click here to learn how you, too, can make a difference with a gift by beneficiary designation. It is a powerful tool and a tax-efficient strategy for making a legacy gift that will enable the University of Nebraska to change lives and save lives.

Contact us at 800-432-3216 or gift.planning@nufoundation.org with any questions or to learn more about how you can make a difference like Sue Schuerman. Ask to speak to a member of the gift planning team.