Five Year Plan: Overview
The Roundhouse—a former horse stable designed, like the Museum’s home, by noted architect Danial Burnham—currently serves as a flexible event space. Its exterior was recently transformed by Site Design Group.
The Museum has both critical and long-term needs complicated by systemic funding inequities endemic to many culturally specific institutions. This campaign will help level the playing field for the Museum and allow it, over the next five years, to:
- Increase its annual operating budget to approximately $6.5 million, situating the Museum appropriately within its peer group and enabling it to staff all necessary professional positions
- Retire its debt, allowing the Museum to raise funds toward enhancing its endowment and fostering financial self- sufficiency
- Grow its educational programs, cultural initiatives, and original content, including exhibitions, to meet demand across the Black and allied communities of the United States and internationally
- Appropriately plan for and manage the care of its collections and archives
- Finalize the renovation of its landmark Burnham Roundhouse, which will complete the nation’s first African-American museum campus
