CODY - Wyoming can, through community networks and some creative thinking, attract some of a $60 billion transfer of wealth from one generation to the next in the state over the next 45 years.

Five percent of that $60 billion, with a return rate of 5 percent, over time could generate $30 million a year for nonprofit organizations to benefit health and child care, education, housing, culture, social services, economic development and the opportunity to renew rural America.

Forever.

"What we've needed in rural areas is a message of hope and a call to action," said Jeff Yost, president and chief executive officer of the Nebraska Community Foundation.

"For too long, rural places have said, 'somebody else will have to solve my problems,'" Yost said. "It ain't going to happen," he told the opening session of 200 participants at the biennial Philanthropy Days sponsored by the Wyoming Community Foundation.

Government can't do it, because more and more of its funding is restricted to certain programs, he said.

But nonprofit organizations, especially those on the scale of the Wyoming Community Foundation through local community foundations, can by reaping a small part of the conservatively estimated $41 trillion that will pass from one generation to the next nationwide between 2000 and 2050, Yost said.

Wyoming alone will see a transfer of about $1.2 billion a year, or a per capita wealth transfer of $120,000, although that figure is lower than the national average of $143,000 because of the state's historically lower income levels, lower asset holdings and external ownership of key assets such as public lands and energy holdings, according to the executive summary of the wealth transfer report published by the Wyoming Community Foundation.

The report also breaks down the estimated endowments each county could receive, and those amounts depend on natural resources, property values, per capita wealth, population and other factors, according to the report. (See related story about Natrona County, A3.)

Nebraska and Wyoming, Yost said, share similar demographic trends of overall population declines in rural communities; the loss of young people, especially those between 25 and 44; and higher-than-national averages of elderly populations.

Small towns know how to build swimming pools and libraries, but that won't return the likes of Yost and his family to his roots in Red Cloud, Neb., home of author Willa Cather, he said.

Instead, Yost wants to see strategic investments in health care, education and economic diversity that will sustain families and make a difference in the future of the community, he said.

The wealth transfer projections were derived from the study "Millionaires and the Millennium" from Boston College, and the Nebraska Community Foundation. The Wyoming Community Foundation commissioned the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship in Lincoln, Neb., to conduct the study.

Rural America, Yost said, traditionally has had a much tougher time creating endowments than urban areas.

Urban areas have had very wealthy people - and their succeeding generations - who set up endowments and conduct extensive fund-raising campaigns, he said.

While some rural areas benefit from multimillionaires, most don't, Yost said.

However, they have a sense of "place" where people want to live and often can live because they aren't tied to an office, he said.

They also have a lot of conservative middle-class people whose frugal lifestyles have led to the amassing of wealth in the form of property, investments, insurance and other assets, Yost said.

When wise community leaders and the influence of peers realize the potential of such an endowment, wonderful things can happen in rural areas, he said.

For example, Valley County in Nebraska has 4,647 people, lost 10 percent of its population in the 1990s, has 50 percent more low-income residents that the state average and 50 percent fewer upper-income residents than the state average, Yost said.

The transfer of such wealth is happening in Valley County now, compared to many other places where it will occur in a decade or two, he said.

The county set up an endowment, which now generates $337,213 a year, and set strategic goals for that money, such as adding a new wing for its hospital, Yost said.

Such improvements make Valley County attractive for people who want to return to their hometown to live, and create a better future for their children, he said.

"Unless we use this to turn around a county, it's just money," he said.