The Manitoba government is creating dedicated endowment funds to ensure ongoing support for the province’s seven unique and popular signature museums.
“Our government is proud to help the seven signature museums continue to showcase and tell Manitoba’s unique stories and the Signature Museum Sustainability Funds, along with the Signature Museum Capacity Building Fund will help ensure these organizations have permanent, sustainable funding into the future,” said Sport, Culture and Heritage Minister Cathy Cox. “These additional investments comes at a time when many Manitoba families are staying within our province and spending more time exploring our own beautiful backyard.”
The Signature Museum Sustainability Funds will provide each signature museum with its own $1.4 million endowment fund that will be administered by its community foundation. Interest generated from the fund will be used to support each of the seven museums. This year alone, each designated signature museum will receive approximately $62,000. The amount will continue to grow over time, creating guaranteed sustainability and growth for the museum in perpetuity.
Additionally, the signature museums will have access to about $10,000 for training each year through the proceeds of a $200,000 Signature Museum Capacity Building Fund that will also be managed by The Winnipeg Foundation.
“We are pleased to manage these funds to help ensure these valuable Manitoba institutions continue to offer world-class experiences for visitors to our province,” said Rick Frost, CEO of The Winnipeg Foundation.
“We are grateful for this strategic investment and are happy to see the fund is targeting things like enhanced visitor experiences and access to professional development opportunities,” said Vania Gagnon, director, St. Boniface Museum. “This provides us with a new level of certainty, which will make it easier to plan and continue to serve our role as one of the province’s signature museums.”
The signature museum program was established in 1998 and assists selected museums that have the potential to be significantly enhanced as heritage tourism attractions. The museums include the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum (Brandon), the New Iceland Heritage Museum (Gimli), the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada (Winnipeg), the Mennonite Heritage Village (Steinbach), the Manitoba Agricultural Museum (Austin), the St. Boniface Museum (Winnipeg) and the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre (Morden).
In March 2019, the Manitoba government released Our Way Forward: Manitoba’s Cultural Policy and Action Plan, the first review of Manitoba’s cultural policy in nearly three decades. These funds fulfil the review’s recommendation of stable and secure funding for Manitoba’s signature museums.
