The campaign to complete the endowment fund of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum exceeded its ambitious target following unprecedented donor response to a spring fundraising campaign.
In early March, an email appeal announced a seed gift of $40,000 by Museum Director Tom Flynn, which would be used to match the first $40,000 in donor contributions. The appeal was repeated in Free Inquiry magazine, in the Museum’s spring fund-drive mailing, and in an article in the CFI newsletter Freethought in Action.
Donor response was unexpectedly enthusiastic. A gift of $50,000 was received from “Fellow Feather,” the pseudonym of a longtime supporter of Ingersoll and Free Inquiry magazine. A gift of $40,000 was received from musicologist T. M. Scruggs. Eleven gifts exceeded $1,000. In total, $141,251 was raised.
The ultimate goal was to bring the Museum’s endowment, then standing at $280,000, up to $400,000 so that its income could fund the Museum’s routine operating expenses. The spring campaign actually exceeded that goal, bringing the endowment to more than $424,000.
Flynn and Robert Green Ingersoll Memorial Committee Chair Jeff Ingersoll (a distant relative of the Museum’s namesake) expressed surprise and delight at the result. “I’m dumfounded,” said Flynn. “I’d hoped to complete the endowment fund by year-end; instead, our generous donors met the target with the first campaign. This illustrates how profoundly Ingersoll is still beloved among his admirers.”
“This is great news! For the first time in its 100 year history, the Museum will not be under threat of closure due to a lack of basic yearly operating funds,” said Jeff Ingersoll. “The legacy of the ‘Great Agnostic’ is now secured for future generations to experience.”
The Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum commemorates freethought orator Robert Green Ingersoll, the nineteenth century’s most famous freethought orator, who was born in the Dresden, New York, house in 1833. It is operated by the Robert Green Ingersoll Memorial Committee, a project of the Council for Secular Humanism. The Council is a program of the Center for Inquiry, a tax-exempt charitable educational organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., and Amherst, New York.