WWI Museum gets $655,000 donation for digitization efforts
December 3, 2020 | In the PressFrom Kansas City Business Journal (https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2020/12/03/wwi-musuem-donation-digitization.html)
The National WWI Museum and Memorial received $655,000 worth of donations Wednesday to help it digitize its entire collection.
The William T. Kemper Foundation donated $500,000, and the National Endowment for the Humanities contributed $155,000, according to a release about the donations.
“We would like to thank the William T. Kemper Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts for their continued generous support and advocacy for our digitization program, especially during this pandemic,” WWI Museum CEO Matt Naylor said in the release. “These gifts support our continued digitization efforts and have also allowed us to transition staff members to support this project and avoid layoffs.”
The museum’s strategic plan calls for it to become more accessible through digital technology, the release said. Through its website, the museum offers education lesson plans, exhibitions and newsletters, among other programs.
During the pandemic, the museum’s staff has transcribed more than 13,000 letters and artifacts, and more than 2,000 object records have been digitized this year.
“The William T. Kemper Foundation has supported the museum’s digitization initiatives since 2011, preserving, facilitating and promoting broad access to the museum’s world-class collection of materials,” Jonathan Kemper, chairman of the William T. Kemper Foundation, said in the release. “While our support of the museum’s program has always been justified with these long-term benefits in mind, it is gratifying to know that current restrictions on physical public access and travel have underscored the current utility of digital access. In the future, we fundamentally believe that leadership in understanding digital technology, and employing it in innovative ways, can and will be transformative to the museum, keeping it vital, relevant and engaged.”
The WWI Museum reopened in June after citywide shutdown orders meant to curb the spread of Covid-19. In a May interview with the Kansas City Business Journal, Naylor said the museum had lost at least $1 million in ticket revenue during the shutdown. However, he said that the museum wasn't planning to lay off staff and that cash reserves would cover financial losses.
At the time, Naylor said he took solace in World War I history when thinking about the museum’s future:
“It was coming out of the pandemic — it was coming out of World War I that the people of Kansas City envisaged the creation of this memorial and had the fortitude to work together to create it. That tells us something about what the future can be after such calamitous events.”
