The Oberlin Heritage Center Endowment for History Education
Meeting New Challenges; Creating an Exciting Future!
The Endowment for History Education helps to support our new staff position of Museum Education Coordinator, whose work enhances our educational outreach and programming and helps bring history alive for school age and general audiences. Help us meet the challenge!
The Endowment for History Education was launched in December 2003 when the Oberlin Heritage Center became the proud recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Challenge Grant. The Oberlin Heritage Center was the only organization in Ohio and one of only ten organizations nationwide that were selected to receive funding for local history initiatives. The grant provided our organization with $100,000 from NEH, provided we raised at least $100,000 ourselves by July 2006. Thanks to an outpouring of support from our members and friends, we met the NEH Challenge early - by the end of calendar year 2004.
The Stocker Foundation provided additional incentives to donors in the first few months of the Endowment for History Education campaign by issuing another $25,000 matching grant. Early donors had the opportunity to have the value of their donations tripled, with matches from both NEH and the Stocker Foundation. The Stocker Foundation's matching grant was fully met by the fall of 2004. Impressed by the wonderful response to the Stocker Foundation's challenge, the Board of Directors of the Richard R. Hallock Foundation issued its own $25,000 challenge in November 2004 to support the campaign; this challenge was met in the spring of 2005.
We're very grateful to all who have contributed to our Endowment for History Education Campaign, and are pleased to report the successful completion of the first phase of this campaign. We reached our goal of $400,000 in contributions and pledges by July 31, 2006. This is truly a remarkable accomplishment for a historical organization in a community of our size (and our former Executive Director, Pat Murphy, received numerous compliments and inquiries from other museum professionals wanting to know how we did it!). Every member of the Board and staff contributed to the campaign as did over 250 individuals and couples, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and private foundations, including the Richard R. Hallock Foundation, the Stocker Foundation, the Eric and Jane Nord Foundation, the ASUSA Foundation, The Stolier Family Foundation, the Cyrus Eaton Foundation, and the Rotary Club of Oberlin. We plan to continue building this Endowment Fund to reach $800,000 to support the full-time Museum Educator position. Our new museum educator, Liz Schultz, began work on June 1, 2007 and is a tremendous addition to our staff. She has a background in anthropology and a graduate degree in museum studies. She is helping develop and expand our tours, programs, and outreach services for school groups and building stronger collaborations with area educators. The Campaign is progressing well, but we still have work to do. The Oberlin Heritage Center invites your support - to donate, call us at (440) 774-1700, email Mary Anne Cunningham at [email protected], or donate online.
