Woodward A. Wickham 1942-2009

January 18, 2009

Woodward A. Wickham, former vice president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and an influential figure in the field of independent film and video production and support for public broadcasting, passed away at his home in Chicago on Sunday, January 18 at age 66. The cause of death was distal bile duct cancer.

Mr. Wickham (known to all as "Woody") joined the MacArthur Foundation in 1990 as vice president and director of its General Program, through which the foundation provides its well-known support for independent media and public broadcasting. MacArthur grants for programming on National Public Radio; for the PBS series Frontline, P.O.V. and Wide Angle; and many of the documentary programs of Bill Moyers as well as support for the Benton Foundation for media policy, were developed by Mr. Wickham and the staff he built at the foundation. He led efforts to build philanthropic organizations in other countries, including the Mozambique Foundation and the Oaxaca (Mexico) Foundation, and he led the foundation's ongoing work on strengthening systems of justice worldwide. These grants and initiatives were included in the approximately $25 million in grantmaking managed annually by Mr. Wickham. He retired from the foundation in 2003.

"Woody Wickham's influence on the MacArthur Foundation and on those whose work he supported helped shape the spirit of our work and the nature of our grants for more than a decade," said Adele S. Simmons, who was president of MacArthur during most of the years Mr. Wickham served there and brought him to the foundation. "Woody was a highly skilled grantmaker, well-known for spotting promising projects and working with those involved to bring out the best in their efforts. Every member of the foundation staff, regardless of their responsibility, knew Woody as a person to whom they could turn for counsel, wise judgment, and friendship. He will be deeply missed."

Jonathan F. Fanton, current president of MacArthur, has announced that an annual Woody Wickham Award will be given that recognizes exceptionally talented and creative members of MacArthur's program staff. "Every healthy institution is blessed with one or perhaps two people who set the standard, lift the spirit, and deepen the soul," said Fanton. "Woody was such at person at the MacArthur Foundation and we are better for his time with us."

A project that illustrated Mr. Wickham's work at its best was his enthusiasm for the well-known 1994 documentary "Hoop Dreams," which followed the path of two young Chicago men as they pursued their dream of playing college and perhaps professional basketball. Produced by Kartemquin Films of Chicago, what began as a documentary about schoolyard basketball evolved with Mr. Wickham's guidance into one of the most important documentaries produced in recent years.

"For over 20 years, Woody was a great supporter of the independent film community," said Gordon Quinn, artistic director and founder of Kartemquin Films. "He was a thoughtful and engaged funder and then served as Chair of the Board of the Independent Television Service, one of our most important institutions. He asked wonderfully challenging questions that helped us refine the stories we were trying to tell. Films like "Hoop Dreams" and "The New Americans" would never have been completed with his personally championing the work."

After leaving the MacArthur Foundation, Wickham was an independent consultant whose clients included the Public Broadcasting Service, Sesame Workshop, McNeil Lehrer Productions, and the Joyce Foundation of Chicago. From 2003 to the time of his death he served on the Board of the Washington D.C.-based Benton Foundation as chairman of its Program Committee. In this role he helped lead the foundation in its program development and strategic planning process. "The brilliance of his mind was matched by his communication skills and the depth of his commitments," said Charles Benton, chairman of the foundation board.

He served as Interim Vice President for Development at National Public Radio from August 2006 through February 2007.

A favorite project in recent years was StoryCorps, the public radio initiative founded by MacArthur Fellow David Isay in which ordinary citizens interview one another about their lives, with the resulting stories archived at the Library of Congress to ultimately form an oral history of American life. Mr. Wickham was the founding Board Chair of StoryCorps, and spoke often of time spent on the mobile StoryCorps booths, traveling to different communities gathering stories which celebrate everyday American lives. "We would not be where we are today without his profound wisdom, hard work and love," said Isay.

In 2005 Wickham was named President of the newly-formed Weil Foundation, founded by his close friend and Harvard classmate Dr. Andrew Weil, director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona and the well-known author of books on healthy living. "Woody was a fine human being, a truly good person with enormous intelligence and a very sharp wit," said Weil. "He was responsible for getting the Weil Foundation up and running, helping shape our priorities and defining our focus."

Mr. Wickham was an enthusiastic outdoorsman, traveling worldwide in pursuit of his passion for fly fishing. He had a second home in Livingston, MT where he was active in environmental affairs, serving on the Board of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.

In 2008, Mr. Wickham endowed a fund at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park, IL to establish what will be named the Woodward A. Wickham Butterfly Garden in his memory. His friends and colleagues will lead an effort in his memory to substantially build the garden's endowment.

Born in Jackson, Michigan in 1942, Wickham was the son of Woodward A. and Virginia McLaren Wickham. He was a 1960 graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. He spent a post-high school year at Tonbridge School in Kent, UK before attending Harvard College where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Lampoon. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1964 and a Masters degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1969.

From 1964 through 1967 Mr. Wickham was an Instructor in Latin and English at The Wooster School in Danbury, CT where he was Founding Director of Wooster Upward Bound, an educational enrichment program for low-income teens in the state of Connecticut.

After a short time as a Senior Education Analyst for the consulting firm Abt Associates, Inc., Mr. Wickham began a seven-year period of work in Mexico. From 1970 through 1975 he wrote reports on the condition of Native Americans in the US and Mexico as a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs in Hanover, NH, and for the following two years was Professor and Chair of the Department of Education for Universidad de las Americas in Cholula, Puebla in Mexico.

Returning to the United States in 1978, he was Director of Development and Secretary of the Board of Trustees for Hampshire College in Amherst, MA through 1985, followed by five years (1985-1990) as Senior Vice President for Jan Krukowski Associates, providing communications consulting for non-profit organizations.

Mr. Wickham is survived by his sister, Susan Wickham Grover Maire of Williamston, MI and Savannah, GA; his brother Robert T. Buchanan of Seattle, WA; his sister Diana Meyer-Buchanan of Besazio, Switzerland; a niece Sarah Grover Trees of Libertyville, IL; a nephew John W. Grover of Caledonia, MI, and several cousins.

End of life care was provided by Northwestern Memorial Hospital Home Hospice Program. There will be a private service for the family. A memorial service for Mr. Wickham will be held later in the winter.

Gifts in his memory can be sent to the endowment of the Woodward A. Wickham Butterfly Garden at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, Chicago, IL 60614.

The Woodward A. Wickham Butterfly Garden
In Memory of Woody and his Spirit at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

Nature has always had a special meaning for Woody, whether he was hiking in the mountains of Oaxaca, fishing in Michigan streams, or opening his front door in Montana to a view of the Absaroka Range. Woody used his time in nature to pause and reflect on its presence.

His apartment in Chicago looks out over North Pond and Lincoln Park to Lake Michigan, places where he often walked, stopping when certain items caught his eye: a bird, a flower, a stand of tall grass.

In the Fall Woody began working with The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park, and the result will be The Woodward A. Wickham Butterfly Garden, an outdoor space for contemplation and wonder on the Museum's grounds. Museum visitors and passersby will enter a place rich with butterflies and the flowering plants that provide their nectar: Monarch butterflies and purple cone flowers, Painted Ladies and sky blue asters, Pearly Crescent butterflies and brilliant orange-flowering native milkweeds. Interpretive signs will explain how visitors can create their own butterfly gardens--these landscapes of attraction--in their own front and back yards. A simple bench with an inscription honoring Woody will provide a place for people to pause, look, and reflect.

Woody has made a generous gift to start a fund to create the garden and provide an endowment for maintenance and educational programming. If you would like to help to complete the endowment, please make your check payable to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60614, attn: Molly Riley, Development Office.