William “Bud” Ipema spent decades creating and nurturing a variety of Christian ministries on Chicago’s West and South sides.
Ipema founded the nonprofit MidAmerica Leadership Foundation — now known as Goodcity — which was aimed at developing community leaders in Chicago and their respective nonprofit groups.
“He knew how to work with organizations and with people who were in powerful places and had lots of resources, but he also knew how to work with people who were in neighborhoods of desperate need and had no idea how to put their fingers on the buttons that would move their ideas into reality,” said Karl Westerhof, a longtime colleague. “Bud knew how to come alongside them and clarify that vision with them and help them to take the right steps and meet the right people and get their vision mobilized. That was a great gift of his.”
Ipema, 81, died of heart failure April 14 at his home, said his daughter, Gardi Wilks. He lived in Oak Park for almost 50 years.
Born in Evergreen Park, Ipema grew up in Palos Heights and graduated from Chicago Christian High School in Palos Heights in 1956. He attended Calvin College in Michigan before moving back to Chicago to lead his family’s construction business, I.V.I. Construction, after his father suffered a heart attack. Ipema eventually returned to college in the 1960s, receiving a bachelor’s degree from Calvin and a master’s degree from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1969.
Ipema’s first work after seminary was with the Christian organization Young Life. Ipema moved to the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side to serve as the group’s national urban trainer, working closely with street gangs.
“As a young adult, he had gained some wealth. He felt a calling to do something different,” Ipema’s daughter said. “He knew he wanted to be part of the civil rights movement. Urban Young Life became the first vehicle for him to do that.”
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Ipema remained with Young Life until 1975, when he became an associate pastor at Lawndale Christian Reformed Church in the West Side Lawndale area — a part-time role he held until he died. Ipema also worked in the 1970s as an adjunct faculty member at North Park Theological Seminary, where he created a master’s degree program for Young Life staff members.
Ipema formed the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education in the mid-1970s with the Rev. William H. Leslie from LaSalle Street Church, and along with Westerhof, he helped oversee the Christian Reformed Churches Synodical Committee on Race Relations.
In 1977, Ipema married his experience with construction with a need in Chicago for mixed-income housing as he helped bring together leaders of five churches to support the development of the 307-unit Atrium Village apartment complex on the Near North Side.
In 1986, Ipema founded the MidAmerica Leadership Foundation. Over Ipema’s 14-year career leading the group, it incubated 42 nonprofit groups.
Struggling communities are “crowded with people who have good ideas,” Ipema told the Tribune in 1990. “They just need resources, helping hands and a chance.”
Chicago lawyer Case Hoogendoorn knew Ipema for close to a half-century and helped set up the MidAmerica Leadership Foundation in the Loop.
“He was always looking for new approaches to race relations and to building urban communities,” Hoogendoorn said. “He was phenomenally aware of the fact that white flight, which was something he had grown up in, had devastated an awful lot of communities, and he was looking to help the people in the community rebuild … social service organizations.”
Ipema retired from the MidAmerica Leadership Foundation in 2001. For the next five years, he worked as an independent consultant to a variety of nonprofit and religious groups. Then, in 2006, he joined the nonprofit Timothy Leadership Foundation as executive director. He held that role until retiring in 2011.
Outside of work, Ipema enjoyed woodworking and spending time at his son’s home in Holland, Mich. In recent years, he divided his time between Oak Park, Michigan and Florida.
Ipema’s wife of 52 years, Donna, died in 2012. In addition to his daughter, Ipema is survived by a son, Ben; a sister, Annamae VanderVelde; and seven grandchildren.
A memorial service was held in Chicago. There will be a memorial service from 5 to 8 p.m. June 29 in Holland, Mich.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.