Martha Williamson '77, Chair of the Ephraim Williams Legacy Society: Thinking about Legacy

The Chair of Williams’ Legacy Society shares her Williams journey.

The Ephraim Williams Legacy Society recognizes alumni, spouses, families and friends who have established planned gift arrangements with Williams or included the college in their estate plans. Membership in The Ephraim Williams Legacy Society is honorary with no gift minimum or proof of bequest intention required. All are welcome!

Williams trustee emetira and, as of July 2023, the chair of the Ephraim Williams Legacy Society (EWLS), Martha Williamson ’77 is president and CEO of MoonWater Productions, a production company specializing in family and inspirational entertainment. Martha is best known as the executive producer and head writer of “Touched By An Angel,” and she became the first woman to be solo executive producer on two shows simultaneously when she created and executive-produced “Promised Land,” also for CBS. Martha’s work has been inducted into the Television and Radio Hall of Fame and received a Producers Guild Nova Award and a Templeton Prize, as well as honors from the U. S. Congress, NAACP, and Anti-Defamation League.

A passionate supporter of the college, Martha founded the Williams Arts and Entertainment Fellowship with Peter Nelson ’76 in 1991, providing internships and support for students and graduates interested in arts careers, and she oversees the J. Lindley and Louise R. Williamson Scholarship Fund, established in 1995.

Martha lives in Southern California with her husband and their two daughters.

How did you get to Williams?
I attended a very large public high school in Denver in the early 70’s, just as the Women’s Liberation Movement was beginning to explode. I was a good student with a passion for theater, music, journalism, and women’s issues.  One day, my American history teacher, a Princeton graduate, passed around a clipboard to sign up for interviews with the Princeton admissions officer.  I put my name on the list and he scratched it off, growling and hissing that women don’t belong in Ivy League men’s schools.
A friend of mine who’d just done the whole eastern college tour said, “You know, Williams just went co-ed and of all the colleges I visited, they were the most serious and still somehow the nicest, too. You’d really like it there.”  And when I met Phil Wick from admissions at Denver’s all-school college fair and I remember walking away thinking that my friend was right – Williams would offer me the highest standards of excellence and the highest example of kindness, not to mention the opportunity to, well, “climb as high and as far” as I could.  I didn’t know it then, but that was my first glimpse of what Ephs like to call “The Williams Way.”

And what did that look like for you once you came to Williams? 
Williams was everything I’d hoped for. It took some time to find my groove there, but Williams gave me the chance to figure it out.  I graduated as an art history major who managed to spent most of her time rehearsing with the Ephlats in the Rathskeller or working on a Cap & Bells  production in the Adams Memorial Theatre. It all came together in my senior year when I wrote and directed a musical incorporating Whit Stoddard’s Art 101 lectures into lyrics for songs composed by Marc Lichtman ’78.  It was the beginning of what became my writing and producing career.

What happened when you graduated?
I made my way to Los Angeles where I knew a Williams grad who let me sleep on their pullout couch until I could get on my feet. And through the LA Alumni Association I met many more alums who offered me advice, support, and friendship, including one who gave me my first break in show business.

I met Felix Grossman ’56 there, who convinced me to make a promise for a multi-year pledge to Williams that at the time seemed impossible to fulfill.  It was a big commitment for a recent grad just getting started but Felix said, “I know you’ll keep that promise, somehow. Because having made it,  it’ll push you to work for something more than your own career. Keeping your promise to Williams will push you to keep your promise to yourself, too.”  And he was right. I worked even harder to pay off that pledge. And the hard work paid off for me as well.

What drives your passion for Williams?
Making that first pledge to Williams was about more than Williams, it was about challenging myself. Felix wasn’t just asking for money. He was helping me believe in myself and in all that I had learned and finding a way to share that, because what happens in the Purple Valley does not stay in the Purple Valley. We graduate with a sort commission to carry that into the world somehow and make a difference.  And we don’t do it alone. As the President of the Alumni Society finds a way to say every year at Commencement: “We’ve got your back.” 

It’s not just about donating money, it’s about strengthening the ties that bind all of us with our time, our participation and our shared vision. And that vision extends beyond our own lives as Williams students to the lives of the ones that come along behind us.

What would you like to accomplish with legacy giving at Williams?
I’d like to break the stereotype that the word “legacy” so often invokes.  Planned giving begins, as it did for me, whenever we make a decision to start finding ways to give back something of what we were given.  It’s a wonderful feeling that shouldn’t be postponed until we start thinking about “getting old.” And those of us who actually are getting older are also getting smarter about thinking more broadly about things like bequests and trusts and surprisingly creative ways to help Williams prepare for the future. 

When I accepted the position as chair I was delighted to discover how uncomplicated the process of leaving something to Williams can be and how tremendously thoughtful and experienced our legacy staff is.  They make it easy to talk about and they surprise you with how little it takes to become a member of Ephraim Williams Legacy Society. 

Let’s face it, thinking about a legacy gift means leaving something behind “when we go.”  And it’s so easy to put off thoughts of “someday.”  But when I walk across campus and experience the passion of our students, the excellence of our faculty, and the wisdom of our leadership, I feel a deep sense of peace, knowing that the legacy commitment I’ve made today makes me a part of all that has come before and a living promise to all that Williams will be.

Williams would be delighted to have you join Martha in The Ephraim Williams Legacy Society and there are lots of ways to become a member. You can include Williams in your will or trust, name Williams as the beneficiary of a retirement account or life insurance policy, or create a life income gift such as a charitable gift annuity or charitable remainder trust. More information about all these planning options can be found by contacting our Gift Planning staff at 413-597-3538 or by email at gift.planning@williams.edu.