Fort Miles Museum and Historical Area recently gained nonprofit status.
Gaining the nonprofit designation from the IRS enables donors to claim a tax deduction for any money they send to Fort Miles.
“It opens up a path to receive large and small donations," said Fort Miles Museum president Jim Pierce. "We need a path for entities like foundations to be able to contribute to a nonprofit and know that we have legal status.”
Pierce says the designation also helps Fort Miles complete and implement a development plan created last December.
“The concept plan was put in place assuming that we would get the (501(c)3) designation. So they are interconnected in that sense.”
Pierce says implementing that 76-page plan starts with adding interactive exhibits, building more modern restrooms and expanding the Museum’s lobby.
“The main elements are somewhat rudimentary and somewhat exciting. Rudimentary - we don’t have restrooms at the site of the Museum; they’re down a hill about 100 yards from the Museum. So we need modern restrooms attached to the Museum; so we’re going to build them. We also need a blogger lobby area where people can gather for tours.”
Pierce says a bigger lobby would enable people to see smaller exhibits while waiting to take a tour of the Museum.
But he says the most exciting project is the addition of interactive exhibits with touch-screens to teach people how Fort Miles operated as a coastal artillery defense site.
He says the exhibits will also highlight World War II history and how Fort Miles fit into that history.
A $200,000 grant from the Delaware Community Reinvestment Fund will pay for those improvements, alongside donations received.
