The Music Man Foundation is named after the Tony winning musical written by Meredith Willson. Meredith’s widow, Rosemary, started the Foundation in 1998 as the Meredith and Rosemary Willson Charitable Foundation and substantially increased the Foundation’s endowment upon her death in 2010. With a mission to support programs that use music to improve children’s lives, the Foundation currently focuses its investments in two initiative areas: core-curriculum music education and music therapy. Besides “The Music Man,” Meredith Willson wrote the musical, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” and beloved songs “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas” and the University of Iowa fight song.