“Since Jim and I don’t have children, we want to leave a legacy to the places that have played major roles in our lives. It was very important to us that we work with a trusted institution that would discharge our wishes in perpetuity. That was why we chose the Boston Foundation.”

Randal Rucker was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1957 in a segregated hospital for Blacks only. His family prized education above all else and, in 1963, he would play a part in desegregating the Nashville Public Schools by attending an all-white school. While the adults surrounding him feared for his safety, Randal thrived at the school and made many friends. Years later, he learned that a school janitor he knew only as Mr. Simon was part of a security team to protect him.

“Without knowing it, I was advancing progress,” he explains. “Because of my experiences growing up in the segregated South, it’s in my DNA that we don’t go back to where we were on policies of human rights, health care, education, food security, and housing affordability.”

With a graduate degree from MIT in City Planning, he went on to work in the private and public sectors, and eventually became the longtime CEO of Family Service of Greater Boston, focusing on supporting those who were economically marginalized. “I became very aware of the disparities in Boston through my work,” he says, “and the importance of chipping away at them. You just have to keep at it.”

Jim Becker was born in Connecticut to family steeped in music. “My father was so musical that he cut his first recording when he was just 11 years old,” he explains. “Dad went on to be a lead singer for big bands such as Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey.”

Jim chose a very different path. “In college, I was an education major at first and then switched my major to East Asian Studies. I went to Taiwan through a program with Stanford University and lived with a Chinese family for a couple of years.”

“Eventually, though, I realized that what I really wanted to do was cook. Back then, work in restaurants was not considered to be a serious career, so I left graduate school and got a job teaching English as a Second Language to adults in Boston’s Chinatown.

“I became very close to Boston’s Chinese community, but eventually followed my heart and attended culinary school.” He went on to found a popular Spanish restaurant in Somerville.

Both Jim, whose family has a summer home in Phippsburg, Maine, and Randal found that they were drawn to living in Maine. During a trip to Portland about 10 years ago, they made a life-changing decision to retire and move there.

Now, they spend summers in Phippsburg and the rest of the time in Portland. Portland offers the intimacy of a small town, while still providing many of the cultural advantages of a major city. 

Phippsburg is a peninsula at the other end of Casco Bay, and retains the feel of a small fishing village. At its heart is the Phippsburg Land Trust, which preserves, protects and stewards special wild and natural places in Phippsburg for the benefit of current and future generations. Its network of thoughtfully maintained hiking trails invites residents and visitors alike to experience the town’s natural beauty. This is a special Maine nonprofit that Jim and Randal have included in their legacy fund.

Over the years they have become deeply ensconced in Maine’s nonprofit sector. Jim rediscovered his love of music and joined the board of Opera Maine. Randal is Vice Chair of the board of a historical house called Victoria Mansion in Portland. Originally owned by hotelier Ruggles Morse, it has been a public museum since 1941.

Some of Randal’s work is focused on telling the complete story of the Mansion. “I think it’s very important, especially these days, that we not forget that places like the Mansion were funded entirely by wealth generated by the slave economy,” he explains. “It wouldn’t exist if not for people who were discriminated against and taken advantage of many years ago.” A major exhibit at the museum tells that story.

Randal and Jim have established a legacy fund at the Boston Foundation that will support the Maine institutions they love as well as nonprofits in Boston, the city that played such a major role in the formative period of their lives. They recently visited Boston again and observed “the stark contrast between people with very little and those with tremendous wealth. It was a real eye-opener to see that the issue of inequality is still there and even worse.”

“Since Jim and I don’t have children,” says Randal, “we want to leave a legacy to the places that have played major roles in our lives. It was very important to us that we work with a trusted institution that would discharge our wishes in perpetuity. That was why we chose the Boston Foundation. We’ve had great conversations with a team that is trusted, competent and professional. Given what Boston has done for us, professionally and personally, and what Maine means to us now, we are establishing a dual legacy that will benefit both places. In Boston, we especially care about health care, food insecurity and education—and we trust the Foundation to make sure that investments are made in institutions that are addressing those issues.

“I am not shy when asking the Foundation about its approach to current and emerging issues and challenges. The Foundation’s position on the issues we care about was another validation of just how good it is.”

Interested in learning more about legacy giving?
If you're thinking about the impact you'd like to leave behind, we'd welcome the chance to talk. Reach out to the Boston Foundation's Development team to explore what a legacy gift could mean for the people and places you care about. Email Us at donorservices@tbf.org or call 617-338-2213.