Personal Giving Stories

Farm Gift to Benefit College of ACES Inspired by Family Legacy

David Borik (middle back)
with his family

Retired Santa Ana, California, administrator David Borik’s philanthropy was inspired, in part, by his parents. In 2000, Milton and Betty (Ross) Borik donated land bordering the U of I golf course to the University of Illinois Foundation (UIF). Their gift supported Illinois Athletics. “Dad loved to go to basketball games,” David shares, “I remember as a kid, he took me on a campus tour of the athletic facilities.” 

David has now made a gift of farmland to UIF that establishes a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) providing him tax savings and payments for life. At his passing, the remainder will support the Department of Crop Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). 

The Milton J. and Betty L. (Ross) Borik Family Endowment is a tribute to the Ross family’s 150 years of farming and his parents who met at Illinois in the late ’40s. Milton was a first-generation student studying civil engineering, and Betty was a clerk typist in the English Department. The senior Borik spent a successful career in engineering in Chicago and the west coast, where they raised their two sons and daughter. 

David remembers visits to the farm. “My grandfather and mom were so proud that you could see ’the big mushroom’ (State Farm Center) from the second-floor bedroom.” 

A UCLA graduate, David achieved his own successful career in city administration—both in personnel and later as an accounting and budget manager. David says he appreciated the ease of making the gift and the timing for him was right. 

“I wanted to do something to honor my parents and the Ross family farm legacy by benefitting ACES programs and research that my grandfather had great respect for,” he says.