Let's Play! Campaign
We’re excited to announce the public launch of our Let’s Play! capital campaign. However, we’re not playing around when it comes to the success of our new forever home! This campaign is designed to raise funds to support the museum's expansion and move. Launched with the gift of an open-ended building lease valued today at $600,000 by the Nance family, we intend to raise $3 million total to reach our fundraising goal.
Investment in Let's Play! will fund these five core objectives:
1. Physical Structure
The Museum will double its size to 9,400 sq. ft. and create vast opportunities for us to configure this space for our needs today and in the future. About 70% of our new space will be dedicated to dynamic, interactive, and regularly updated exhibits. The remaining 30% will house essential operations, a collections storage space, and community-building functions.
2. Capacity and Sustainability
To elevate our visibility, reputation, overall quality, and global reach, we will begin hiring experienced museum staff, including a full-time Museum Executive Director. Having these professionals in place will allow us to expand our opening hours significantly, as well as add consistency and breadth to our communications, community engagement, annual fundraising, and national presence.
3. Exhibits, Visitor Experience, and Collections
The Museum will create more meaningful, targeted, and high-quality exhibits, as well as enhance our visitor’s experience from the moment they come within sight of our facility. Physically, our entranceway will feature a dynamic Glockenspiel, and to bring all of this to the next level, we will work with exhibit designers to reimagine and optimize our legacy exhibits, as well as advise us on future displays, museum trends and best practices, and audience evaluations.
4. Programming and Technology
The Museum will create robust programming that educates, entertains, and brings generations together. We will work with curators, educators, and interpreters to develop new learning opportunities for adults, families with children, teens, and young adults. We will work toward offering docent-lead or self-guided school tours aligned with North Carolina Common Core Standards, and invest in state-of-the-art technologies, including high-bandwidth network solutions and audiovisual resources - to guarantee that the Museum can support day-to-day operations as well as respond to future opportunities.
5. Grants, Reserves, and Awards
The Museum will create mission-critical financial reserves to subsidize group visits, cover unanticipated expenses and opportunities, and recognize those that have made significant contributions in the doll, toy, and miniature communities. This will include a named grant program dedicated to providing transportation, entry fees, docents, food service, and other incidentals for area community, school, and church groups who otherwise could not afford to tour the Museum.
We are extremely grateful for the generosity of our donors and community, and with your continued support, we have been able to raise a significant amount of funds to begin our construction. See our proposed floorplan here (insert NCDMTM Floorplan PDF)
Campaign contributors can be recognized through Legacy Naming Opportunities that will include spaces in the new Museum, as well as funds and scholarships that enable us to extend our reach regionally, nationally, and internationally. Your name, or the name of someone you choose to honor, can be permanently linked to the important work of the Museum.
