Some people build institutions. Others make sure we remember how they were built. Wendy Kraft has spent decades doing both.

The LGBTQ+ Center of Las Vegas has named Kraft the recipient of its 2026 Center Legacy Award, honoring a record of service, generosity and advocacy that stretches across Southern Nevada's LGBTQ+, Jewish and nonprofit communities. It is an award about history, and few people in this valley have done more to protect ours.

For many in the community, Kraft has simply always been there: at the board table, at the fundraiser, behind the scenes making the call that gets something done. The Legacy Award puts a name to what longtime Center supporters already know.

A steady hand at The Center

Kraft's relationship with The Center runs deep. As a longtime member of its Governing Board, she served as Board Secretary, helping steer the organization through years of growth.

When The Center decided it needed a separate foundation to secure its long-term financial future, Kraft stepped up again. She became the founding President of The Center Foundation of Nevada, the body created to make sure the organization's work can outlast any single budget cycle or leadership team.

That kind of role rarely makes headlines. It means building something meant to last long after the ribbon-cutting photos fade. Throughout her tenure, Kraft has given her time, her resources, her relationships and her leadership to help The Center grow into the institution it is today.

An advocate on many fronts

Kraft's commitment never stopped at The Center's doors. She has been a longtime voice for LGBTQ+ equality on the national stage, serving on the Las Vegas Human Rights Campaign Steering Committee, as Co-chair of HRC's Federal Club, and on HRC's National Board of Governors. In 2015, the organization named her its Volunteer of the Year.

Her service list reads like a map of Southern Nevada's civic life. She has lent her leadership to LAMBDA, the Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada, the Senior Citizen Law Project, Jewish Family Service Agency, the Women's Division of Jewish Nevada, the Southern Nevada Continuity of Care Association and Hadassah. Today she sits on the Board of the Anti-Defamation League.

Those communities have noticed. Hadassah named Kraft its Woman of the Year in 2014.

What ties that work together is a belief that communities are stronger when they show up for one another. Through her LGBTQ+ advocacy, her leadership in the Jewish community, her nonprofit service and her philanthropy, Kraft has consistently used her influence to bring people together and fight for dignity, equality and opportunity for others.

Partners in life and work

At the center of Kraft's life is her wife, Laura Sussman. The two were longtime partners before they married in 2015, the year marriage equality became the law of the land.

They have shared more than a home. Kraft and Sussman co-own Kraft-Sussman Funeral and Cremation Service, a business built on caring for families at their most difficult moments. In 2018, Temple Sinai honored the couple together.

The family they have built reflects the same values that define Kraft's public life: community, compassion, social responsibility and a willingness to stand up for others.

Carrying the story forward

What makes Kraft a fitting Legacy Award honoree is her understanding that legacy is not only about looking back. It is about carrying history forward.

As The Center has grown and changed, Kraft has stayed closely involved, championing its work while making sure the people who built it are not forgotten. That includes the struggles, the victories, and the acts of courage and generosity that got Southern Nevada's LGBTQ+ community to where it stands today.

She is now putting that conviction into practice. Kraft is helping The Center develop an upcoming historical display that will preserve and tell the story of The Center and the region's LGBTQ+ community. The goal is simple: future generations should know the people and experiences that made today's progress possible.

In The Center's view, the organization itself is a legacy. It belongs to generations of LGBTQ+ people and allies who believed Southern Nevada needed a place of safety, belonging, dignity and connection, where people could live authentically. It was built by those who gave their time, talent, money, relationships and voices so the next generation would inherit something stronger.

Kraft is one of those people. And as The Center writes its next chapter, she remains committed to making sure we remember the chapters that came before.

A legacy still being written

The 2026 Center Legacy Award recognizes more than a résumé of board seats and honors. It recognizes the lasting imprint Kraft has left on an organization and a community she has loved, championed and strengthened for decades.

Her enthusiasm for preserving our history, and for inviting others to become part of it, is exactly what the award was created to celebrate. For Wendy Kraft, the story of LGBTQ+ Las Vegas is not finished. She just wants to make sure it is told right.