Levels of Giving

Education

Every day, the Michigan History Foundation supports educational programs designed to encourage children to fall in love with history and with learning. Exhibits, maps, photographs, diaries, and stories from Michigan's past inspire our kids to dig deeper into history and see the connection between their experience and the world around them.

Each year, some 80,000 children visit the Michigan Historical Museum and ten field sites across the state. Some come for a general tour. Others participate in summer camps, or more focused programs like the Big History Lesson, a weeklong learning laboratory.

The Michigan History Foundation also supports teacher workshops to help teachers inspire their students.

Your support of the Michigan History Foundation Education Fund ensures that Michigan's children will continue to be inspired, and that Michigan's stories will live on.

Preservation and Access

While preservation and access sometimes means preserving a building, it also means using cuttingedge technology to make Michigan’s history accessible to anyone anywhere in the world.

When the world-famous Yamasaki architectural firm abruptly closed its doors in Southfield, the Foundation furnished the means to rescue drawings and records that demonstrate a creative genius.

The Archives of Michigan is now the steward of Yamasaki’s designs for the student housing at Michigan Tech in Houghton, Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, and the World Trade Center in New York City.

Cultural Tourism

Travel and tourism are big business in Michigan. Some of our key attractions – Mackinac Island, the West Michigan Pike, the Michigan Historical Museum, the State Capitol Building, Michigan Modern – offer thousands of historical treasures and cultural gems in addition to their natural beauty. When properly marketed, such landmarks can be a huge draw and economic boost to the state.

Cultural tourism creates jobs, inspires downtown revitalization and historic preservation, and instills pride of place.

Supporting the Michigan History Foundation’s cultural tourism efforts not only helps preserve history, but also is a great way to power Michigan’s economy.

Endowment

The Michigan History Foundation maintains an endowment to support these various endeavors. Having an endowment funded by private dollars allows the Foundation to act more quickly than a government agency could. Although it might sound very counter-intuitive, historic preservation requires the ability to respond on short notice, especially in the case of recently acquired artifacts, or to rescue a historic structure that has a leaking roof.

YOUR HELP IS ESSENTIAL.

Your support of the Michigan History Foundation’s Endowment Fund, we believe, over time, will profoundly change the state by helping to revitalize and improve the livability of communities, maintain and improve Michigan history education programs, provide joy and inspiration, and restore a sense of pride and community spirit.