W. Jerome Frautschi, one of Wisconsin’s most prominent philanthropists, has died at the age of 94.
Perhaps best known for giving what is cited as one of the largest gifts to the arts from a single donor in the country, Frautschi donated $205 million to build the Overture Center for the Arts, an arts and performance venue in downtown Madison. He finalized his pledge for the project in 1998, construction began in 2001 and the building opened in 2004. The Overture, which takes up a whole city block, includes a 2,100-seat concert hall, 1,000-seat refurbished historic theater, 350-seat theater in the round and 80,000-square-foot Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
In 2024 he reaffirmed his commitment to the Overture Center with a $10 million pledge to the Overture Forever campaign.
Frautschi ran Webcrafters, a family-owned book manufacturing company, with his brother, John, for 42 years. The company was acquired by Minnesota-based CJK Group in 2017.
Frautschi married Pleasant Rowland, fellow philanthropist and creator of the American Girl brand.
His support of the Overture Center project was largely motivated by a desire to revitalize downtown Madison. He and Rowland led the redevelopment of the 100 block of State Street and led a group of investors to close a financing gap for the Edgewater Hotel’s expansion.
Frautschi also made a pair of $10 million gifts for the Wisconsin Historical Society‘s new building, expected to open in 2027 in downtown Madison.
In addition, Frautschi made numerous donations to other arts and education-related nonprofits, including One City Schools, Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County and the Madison College Foundation. The Jerry Awards, the statewide high school musical awards program, is named after him in recognition of his support for the arts.
In another significant donation to the community, Frautschi and his family gifted the Second Point on Lake Mendota, called Frautschi Point, to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1980s, providing a link to the western and eastern ends of the university’s shoreline.
Frautschi served as president and campaign chair for the United Way and on the board of the Madison Community Foundation, MMOCA, the Vilas Trust, Ten Chimneys, the Evjue Foundation, the University of Wisconsin Foundation, the Waisman Center Board of Visitors and the Letters and Science Board of Visitors of the University of Wisconsin.
He was also a Korean War Navy veteran.
Frautschi was featured by BizTimes Milwaukee in the 2022, 2024 and 2025 editions of Wisconsin 275, recognizing the state’s most influential business leaders.
