Image courtesy of Origin Studios.
INDIANAPOLIS, IN (NWPR) – The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is in the home stretch of a $55 million capital and endowment campaign that is funding transformational changes to the museum’s galleries and programming spaces while also tripling the museum’s operating endowment.
The capstone phase is the reconstruction and reinstallation of the Eiteljorg’s Native American Galleries, which will have an entirely different look when they reopen in June 2022 with a highlight on the Native peoples of the Great Lakes.
Now entering the public phase of its fundraising campaign, called Project 2021: Telling Your Stories, the Eiteljorg seeks to raise more than $6 million by May 2022.
“Through a combination of gifts and bequests from the museum’s most loyal supporters, corporate partnerships and grants from local and national foundations, the Eiteljorg has been remarkably successful in hitting our financial milestones during the ‘quiet phase’ of our fundraising over the past five years,” Eiteljorg President and CEO John Vanausdall said. “Even during the pandemic when all charitable giving slowed, our supporters helped us make progress toward our capital campaign and endowment goals. Now we are announcing the public phase of fundraising, and urge Eiteljorg supporters, members, visitors and the community to contribute to helping the museum cross the last mile.”
While reconstruction continues on the Native American Galleries, some of the Eiteljorg’s other Project 2021 benchmarks already have been reached: Its Western Art Galleries were reconstructed and reinstalled.
The museum’s Nina Mason Pulliam Education Center is under renovation now and will reopen to visitors in November.
Still ahead is a planned 2022 expansion of the museum’s Allen Whitehill Clowes Sculpture Court event space to double its capacity to host larger educational and cultural programs and larger rental and catered events.
The Eiteljorg’s second-floor Native American Galleries is completely reconstructing the galleries, and will reinstall Native artworks in a fresh, contextualized space.
The Eiteljorg’s endowment started with $20 million in 2016, and the goal of Project 2021 is to add another $40 million to that. A healthy endowment is important to the future financial security of the museum through providing a stable base of support year after year.
For more information, see https://eiteljorg.org.