The Irwin A. and Robert D. Goodman Foundation in Madison closed at the end of August after 15 years of service to the city, the foundation announced Aug. 18.
Over their time in Madison, the Goodman Foundation gave approximately $67 million in grants to about 100 nonprofit organizations in the Greater Madison area, Executive Director E.G. Schramka told The Daily Cardinal.
“I think the significance of the Foundation is better measured by what those grants made possible,” he said. “The Foundation helped support facilities, programs and organizations that serve thousands of people throughout the Madison area and that will continue serving the community long after the Foundation closes.”
The Goodman Foundation was established in 2011 in memory of the Goodman brothers, who died in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Schramka has been a part of the foundation since its origin and used the initial funds of $33 million to extend the legacy of Irwin and Bob Goodman.
“I consider it a privilege to have had a role in carrying their values and generosity forward,” he said.
Schramka said the decision to close the Foundation was an intentional move made around ten years ago.
“Rather than operate the foundation in perpetuity, the board believed Irwin and Bob Goodman's legacy could have a greater impact by putting the Foundation's resources to work in the Madison community over a defined period of time,” Schramka told the Cardinal. This allowed the foundation to make larger and more significant grants that addressed different needs and opportunities in the Madison community.
The foundation’s funds supported the Goodman Pool, the Goodman South Campus of Madison College, the Goodman Indoor Training Center for the University of Wisconsin women’s softball team, the Goodman Campus of the Jewish Federation of Madison and the Goodman Nonprofit Center among many others.
“What I find most meaningful about that list is its breadth,” Schramka told the Cardinal. “These projects involve education, recreation, libraries, neighborhoods, the Jewish community, nonprofit capacity building and opportunities for people of different ages and backgrounds.”
Schramka hopes Madison won’t view the closing of the foundation as the end of the Goodmans’ philanthropy, but a completion of it.
“They spent much of their lives quietly helping people and organizations in Madison,” Schramka said. “As we close this chapter, we do so with a great deal of gratitude — to the nonprofit organizations and their leaders who actually do this work every day, to the people who partnered with the foundation and to the Madison community that Irwin and Bob cared about so deeply.”
