ONE NSU MAGAZINE most advanced stage possible. What made the situation even more distressing was that Ricci was working in New York, while Naomi was in Iowa— setting in motion a series of life-altering changes. BEFORE CANCER After earning two degrees at Nova Southeastern University (NSU)—a Bachelor of Science and an M.B.A. in International Business from the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Ricci relocated to the Midwest in 2016 to accept a position as an advancement systems administrator at Upper Iowa University in Fayette, Iowa. Soon after starting at Upper Iowa University, love intervened when he met Naomi, who hails from Malaysia and worked as the university’s director of annual giving. “We both have a mindset of philanthropy and wanting to help others,” said Ricci of the couple, who tied the knot on July 22, 2022. “We both knew the lingo of higher education fundraising, so we spent a lot of time working on projects together. We started dating, and six months later, I joined her to attend a wedding in Malaysia.” After enjoying an idyllic few years together in Iowa, Ricci left the university in the summer of 2018 to pursue a career opportunity in New York at an internationally known Jewish university. In 2020, because Ricci wanted to help many nonprofits at one time, he decided to join the team at FreeWill, which provides nocost estate planning tools and has allowed people to use the platform to commit billions of dollars to nonprofit organizations. Initially, the goal was for Naomi to join him in “When I received the diagnosis, I told Matthew he had an option.” 20
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