The Delaware Art Museum announced today that it hit a goal of fundraising over $85,000. That makes the Museum ready to receive a matching gift of $75,000 from the Jessie Ball duPont fund.
Museum officials say the goal of the matching gift challenge was to create a culture of philanthropy by encouraging individual donors to step up their contributions.
The Delaware Art Museum’s fundraising push comes on the heels of a decision last year to sell off works to settle a $19.8 million debt from expanding the museum. That action led to a formal censure from the Association of Art Museum Directors.
In total, the Museum raised around $157,000 from the matching gift challenge. That money which will go toward supporting its general operating fund - that helps cover the cost of exhibitions, art conservation and educational outreach.
The museum also recently received other major fundraising boosts in the form of a one million dollar legacy gift; a joint $1.7 million gift to endow the Museum's Curator of the Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite art; and a $500,000 grant from the Longwood Foundation.
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This story is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.