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Special Gift Opportunities
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Historic Area Programming
Nation Builders
An extraordinary group of men and women set the compass for America's resistance to Great Britain and fight for independence. To tell their story, Colonial Williamsburg has engaged a group of talented actor/interpreters called Nation Builders. Leading patriots like Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Washington are joined by less well- known free and enslaved individuals who shaped the course of events that led to the Revolution and a new republican order. In Historic Area programs as well as educational outreach initiatives like Colonial Williamsburg's Electronic Field Trips, Nation Builders demonstrate that it took men and women of different classes, races, and talents to give birth to America. As key spokespeople for the Foundation's Education-for-Citizenship theme, Nation Builders convey the message that now, as at the time of the Revolution, every American citizen needs to be involved in building and sustaining our nation.
Your support funds ongoing program development and the training and costuming of Nation Builders. Gifts of any size are welcome.
Revolutionary City
Beginning this summer we will introduce guests to a new “Revolutionary City” that draws together all programs throughout the Historic Area—historic sites, trades, on-the-streets programs, scenes from the current Revolutionary City, African American and Native American programs, military programs, RevQuest: Lion and the Unicorn and children's activities—into a single compelling story. “Revolutionary City” will highlight the diverse experiences of the inhabitants of Williamsburg during the American Revolution: daily life in the sites, shops and on the streets; new revolutionary ideas; the different perspectives of the gentry, working people, women, African Americans, Indians, and the military. Revolutionary City” is interactive, inviting, and compelling and speaks to the enduring importance of the founding principles that continue to shape our democracy today.
Your support funds ongoing Revolutionary City story development and the training and costuming of the actor / interpreters. Gifts of any size are welcome.
RevQuest: The Lion and the Unicorn
Following the success of RevQuest: Sign of the Rhinoceros last year, we will offer a new RevQuest story for families (children aged 8-12) this summer designed to cast them directly into an adventure in wartime Williamsburg that will challenge them to help save the Revolution from imminent peril. Young guests can begin the game online and continue on-site in Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Area, interacting with costumed interpreters and solving clues communicated via personal mobile technology.
Your funds support the cost of development and materials. Gifts of any size are welcome.
African American Programming
Inclusiveness and authenticity are hallmarks of Colonial Williamsburg's programming. As the rights of man were articulated in the House of Burgesses and the Raleigh Tavern, the narrow definition of those to whom such rights extended did not include Africans and African Americans, Native peoples, women, or men with no property. Colonial Williamsburg pioneered the development of African American programming, which illustrates the lives of free black and enslaved people in late colonial and revolutionary America. Programs highlight the role of African Americans in the American Revolution, the impact of slavery upon the founding of the American republic, and African Americans' struggle for freedom and full rights as citizens. This year a new “in the moment” program will be introduced at the Peyton Randolph House featuring the paradox of freedom and slavery by contrasting Peyton Randolph's espousal of the American cause with the lives of his enslaved workers. Our programs inspire modern citizens to reflect on the importance of active participation in a democratic society to safeguard our rights and the rights of others.
Your support funds ongoing African American program development. We welcome your gift of any size.
American Indian Initiative(AII)
American Indians played a critical role in colonial America and the formation of the United States. Colonial Williamsburg's American Indian Initiative supports programming, activities, and projects depicting Native peoples in Williamsburg on the eve of the American Revolution. Efforts include forging partnerships with American Indian communities and institutions and sponsoring special Indian programs, such as “So Far From Scioto” and “The War Party” performed by all-Native casts, an Electronic Field Trip, “Emissaries of Peace,” in partnership with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, and an annual weekend program, “Return of the Cherokee,” with an Eastern Cherokee delegation.
Annual funds needed: $50,000. We welcome gifts of any size.
So Far from Scioto and The War Party
Two well-received and popular productions showcase Indian reaction to the winds of war blowing through Virginia. Offered for several weeks in the spring and fall with all-Native American casts, the stories feature Shawnees in Williamsburg. In “Scioto,” the young men were in town as part of a “peace bond” in 1774 and were treated as guests. Visitors witness the Shawnees' response to the tumultuous events of the following year as they consider whether to stay or return to their own lands. “The War Party” shows relationships with the Shawnee and Virginians breaking down in 1778, after militia men had murdered the Shawnee chief.
We welcome your gift of any size toward production costs, which will total approximately $100,000 in 2012.
Military Encampment and Artillery Park
To understand more fully the story of the American Revolutionary War soldier, Colonial Williamsburg guests may join the Virginia State Garrison Regiment at a Military Encampment similar to soldiers' camps surrounding Virginia's capital as the struggle began. Their 40-minute tour of duty includes hearing the orders of the day, learning about food rations, marching, and practicing 18th-century musket drills.
Funds needed for seasonal staffing and encampment supplies: $35,000.
A 1781 map of Williamsburg shows French and American military encampments and near the Magazine and Courthouse an Artillery Park for storing and maintaining field pieces. Soldiers practiced firing guns in or near the compound. An Artillery Park is in Colonial Williamsburg's plan for expanded military programs.
Funds needed for eight representative artillery pieces:
2 heavy iron 3-pounder cannon: $11,000
2 light bronze 6-pounder cannon: $52,000
2 bronze 5 1/2-inch howitzers: $12,000
2 bronze 4 1/2-inch cohorn mortars: $36,000
Special Weekend Program:
Prelude to Victory:
American and French Troops Preparing for the Siege of Yorktown
Colonial Williamsburg draws hundreds of re-enactors to its special 3-day weekends. Encamped in tents on Palace Green and near the Courthouse, British and Continental Army re-enactors and Colonial Williamsburg interpreters help visitors understand the decisive 1781 events that led to the defeat of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown and the colonies' gaining independence from the Crown.
Funds needed: $15,000.
Historic Area Preservation, Conservation, and Other Needs
Masonry Preservation
Colonial Williamsburg is repairing brick and stone elements of more than 40 Historic Area structures that are currently at risk. Colonial Williamsburg maintenance masons and Historic Trades brickmakers are continuing this work in 2012.
Repair of Margaret Hunter Shop Masonry Walls
Improper mortar will be removed and replaced with period-appropriate and structurally friendly mortar; deteriorated areas will be stabilized and repaired. Funds needed: $5,068.
Robert Carter Brick Quarters Repairs
An original structure with extensive masonry deterioration due to age and the previous use of incompatible materials, Colonial Williamsburg will remove modern mortar and stabilize deteriorating areas using period-appropriate materials and techniques. Funds needed: $12,685.
Conservation of Early Grave Stones throughout the Historic Area
Six family cemeteries lie within Colonial Williamsburg boundaries with more than 60 markers and monuments dating from 1823 to 1992. Due to the impact of time and the environment, the cemeteries require preservation and stabilization work.
Funds needed: $30,000.
Paint Analysis of Historic Interiors
Colonial Williamsburg is well known for its ground-breaking architectural paint and color research. Using cross-section microscopy, pigment analysis, and color measurement, the Foundation has identified original exterior building colors, pigments used, and their relative dates. Expert paint analysts working with foundation architectural historians now wish to study interior paint in its eighteenth-century buildings. Interior paint strata are far more intact than those on building exteriors, and variations within and among rooms tell complex stories of usage and change.
Funding needed for the estimated three-year project: $200,000. A gift of any size is welcome.
Garden Endowments
You can help ensure that Colonial Williamsburg's gardens continue to delight guests for generations to come. Filled with the riotous color of spring bulbs, the luxurious green of the summer months, or the blaze of autumn leaves, Historic Area gardens are beautiful works of art as well as illustrations of an important facet of 18th-century life.
A gift of $100,000 creates a named endowment for the gardens, which could be recognized at a Historic Area location.
18th-century Type for the Print Shop
Historic Trades printers use traditional lead-based type to print reproduction documents on their 18th-century-style press. With use, the type wears out, requiring its replacement. While once a common material, this type is no longer used commercially, and Colonial Williamsburg has only one source of supply, Quaker City Type Foundry in Pennsylvania. While type is still available, Colonial Williamsburg hopes to obtain as much as possible.
Gifts of any size are welcome to purchase type to have on hand for printing broadsides, booklets, and pamphlets.
Historic Trades Summer Internships
Colonial Williamsburg's Historic Trades program, begun in 1936, has evolved to become the largest and most diverse museum-operated trades program in the world and one of the most historically accurate, with a strong emphasis on hands-on practice and documentary research. Colonial Williamsburg currently practices 30 trades at more than 20 sites. Tradesmen and women represent the skills, ingenuity, and dedication to excellence on which American society and our economy were built. Internships offer interested individuals three-month experiences to learn about the trade(s), develop skills, gain public contact and service experience, and acquire insights about museum and living history careers.
Funds needed for 4 summer interns: $20,000
Historic Area Costuming Accessories
More than 800 Colonial Williamsburg employees work in costume in the Historic Area, taverns, period stores, and special programs. Keeping them attired in reproduction 18th-century clothing and accessories is the responsibility of the Costume Design Center. Accessories include new and replacement eyewear and shoes; the goal is authenticity of appearance. Interpreters requiring eyeglasses are issued period-appropriate frames (typically with round lenses and wire frames and procured from a specialized vendor) which are fitted with their prescriptions. Interpreters' shoe styles vary to reflect the different life styles of 18th-century Williamsburg society. Colonial Williamsburg shoemakers make some shoes while others are manufactured in England and the U.S. ; each pair costs approximately $125.
Funds needed: $61,000 for annual shoe expenses and $5,000 for eyeglasses.
Collections, Conservation, and Museums
“Quilts in the Baltimore Manner,”
An exhibition of 12 quilts made in and around the Baltimore area, opens in late May 2012. The quilts of Baltimore are noted for their strong design, excellent craftsmanship, and brilliant colors. The most famous are appliquéd “album quilts,” so called because the individual squares making up the quilts are “albums” of names, dates, and sayings, penned directly on the cloth by a community of individuals. The designs of Baltimore influenced the wider community of quilters, including areas beyond Baltimore, such as Northern Virginia. The quilts date from the 1820s through the 1860s.
Funds needed: $7,000
“American Folk Art Portraits”
An exhibition of Folk Art Portraits from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum will open in late September 2012. Drawing from the superb collection of American folk portraits first begun by Mrs. Rockefeller, the exhibition will delight the viewer while exploring various themes and exploding a few myths. “They added heads later, didn't they?” “Why aren't they smiling?” “Why is his hand in his coat?” Visitors will learn the answers to these frequently asked questions and discover more about the children, adults, and families portrayed in the paintings by a number of known and little-known folk artists primarily from the nineteenth century.
Exhibit funding needed: $22,000.
"Changing Keys: Keyboard Instruments for America"
An exhibition featuring over 25 instruments including spinets, harpsichords, organs, and pianos, will open November 22, 2012. Ranging in date from 1700 to 1830, the instruments feature Colonial Williamsburg's significant collection of English keyboards. Many have never been exhibited before. Keyboard instruments were an integral part of the cultural milieu of Virginia's colonial and post-colonial period. The second known public performance on a piano in America took place at the Raleigh Tavern. The exhibit will explore the differences in the various types of keyboards as well as the evolution of the instrument over time. Two reproductions and selected restored instruments can be played for visitors. Several interactive models of mechanical actions will allow visitors to see the inner workings of the instruments.
Exhibit support needed: $143,000.
“Style, Function and Price: Buying Furniture in Early America”
This exhibition opening in 2014 will showcase Colonial Williamsburg's world-class collection of 18th-century furniture. The exhibit will allow visitors to pose as colonial consumers, exploring furniture style, construction, decoration, and price. Audio/video tours will permit guests to delve more deeply into these topics at their own pace.
Funds needed: $150,000.
Conservation
Digital Projector for Wallace Collections and Conservation Building
The Collections and Conservation Building's conference room is used for staff meetings, conference reports, presentation practice sessions, and webinar participation. The existing portable projector does not accurately project digital images and is often unavailable. A digital projector will enable the Conservation Department to illustrate their treatments accurately and be available for use by Collections, Conservation and Museums staff, donor groups, and outside visitors.
A mountable digital projector costs $1,800; adding a universal mount for $65 and a large screen for $75 would bring the total cost to $1,940.
Equipment: Laser Cleaner
Surgical lasers have become a valuable addition to the conservator's toolbox for cleaning historic and art object surfaces, such as artifacts, sculptures, and monuments. Unlike more traditional cleaning methods, lasers preserve patina, fine surface detail, and surface coatings. Colonial Williamsburg hopes to acquire a Lynton “Compact Phoenix” Conservation Laser Cleaning system, which is a small handheld laser connected to a desktop power supply. A laser cleaner will be useful for many conservators; in the objects lab, for example, it will allow for the easy removal of staining from ceramic objects. Our architectural conservator will be able to use it to safely and quickly clean the heavily used stone and brick steps and architectural walkways in the Historic Area.
Funds to acquire this equipment: $35,000.
Productions, Publications, and Learning Ventures - Educational Outreach
Electronic Field Trips Make History Come Alive
Colonial Williamsburg's annual series of Electronic Field Trips inspires students in grades 4-8 with the stories, people and events that created the American nation. Designed to engage and inform, these nationally broadcast programs allow participants to ask on-the-air questions of Colonial Williamsburg interpreters, historians, and educators and to interact with other students through Web sites that include projects, Web adventures, primary source documents, and electronic bulletin boards. Registration also includes teachers' guides with pre- and post-broadcast lesson plans.
A gift of $500 provides your local school or another school with the seven-program series offered during the school year.
Fund a Scholarship to the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute
Give a teacher the opportunity to attend the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute, a week-long professional development program that immerses teachers in early American history. Lodging, meals, and a wealth of instructional materials are included. To date, more than 6,000 educators have completed the program, returning to their classrooms better prepared to teach American history and citizenship.
A $1,900 gift plus funds for transportation (or frequent flyer miles) will send a teacher to Williamsburg for a week's experience that many past teacher participants have defined as “transformative.”
Sponsor a Teaching American History Conference
Help Colonial Williamsburg bring living history experiences to teachers in their school districts through 1- or 2-day conferences on teaching American history. In workshops around the country, teachers explore historical content, analyze primary sources, participate in simulations, and role play with Colonial Williamsburg's character interpreters. Each conference helps teachers meet academic-content standards, learn innovative teaching strategies, and support interdisciplinary studies. Teachers receive lesson plans, facsimile primary sources, reproduction artifacts, and one live Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trip broadcast to their classrooms.
With a gift of $30,000, provide up to 75 teachers in your school district or another deserving district with this workshop to increase their history knowledge and acquire lesson plans and classroom resources.
Kids Zone
Kids Zone, an award-winning Web site developed for five-to-ten-year-olds, makes learning history fun and interactive. Illustrated characters guide young viewers through games, activities, and resources about colonial American life. Children can create and send electronic postcards; play games about historic trades, rare animal breeds, archaeology, gardening, and the American founders; write with a quill pen; solve word searches; beat a drum to music played by Colonial Williamsburg Fifers and Drummers; or dress an 18th-century paper doll. They use a 3D map to "Tour the Town" to see where people lived and worked. Special "zoomable" slideshows offer detailed views of historic documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
Annual funding needed is $50,000; your gift of any size is welcome.
Publications
The first two publications are part of an initiative to make Colonial Williamsburg's innovative high school curriculum, The Idea of America™, available to the general public in various forms.- A paperback book by Royce R. & Kathryn M. Baker Vice President of Productions, Publications, and Learning Ventures William White with Michael Hartoonian and Richard Van Scotter fully explores this new way of looking at history and civics. The book shows how a series of “value tensions”—freedom vs. equality, unity vs. diversity, private wealth vs. common wealth, law vs. ethics—have shaped debates throughout our history. Funds needed: $25,000.
- A handy “pocket” guide will also be available as a brief introduction to The Idea of America. Funds needed: $7,500.
- Images of America by Colonial Williamsburg Publications Director Paul Aron. How the eagle become our national symbol, what Betsy Ross really had to with the flag, and other stories behind such American icons as Yankee Doodle, Uncle Sam, and the Liberty Bell. Funds needed: $20,000.
- 18th-Century Fun for Kids edited by Colonial Williamsburg editor Amy Watson. Games and activities, rhymes and riddles, stories and songs, and more. Funds needed: $25,000.
- History is Served by Colonial Williamsburg Foodways staff. An overview of 18th-century foodways, including techniques, equipment, and a sampling of recipes with modern adaptations. Funds needed: $40,500.
- If We Don't Tell the Story, Who Will? by Colonial Williamsburg researcher Ywone Edwards-Ingram. A history of African-American interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg, featuring interviews with interpreters and profiles of the historical figures they play. Funds needed: $37,500.
General Support
Unrestricted Endowment - Recognition on Donor Plaque at the Visitor Center
One of the most valuable ways to support the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is through the establishment of an unrestricted endowment. Your endowment will help with the restoration and conservation of historic buildings, archaeology, innovative programming, museums, educational outreach, costumes for interpreters, carriages, preservation of rare animal breeds—in short, everything Colonial Williamsburg does. If a particular aspect of Colonial Williamsburg's mission appeals to you, it is also possible to establish a restricted endowment for that purpose. Endowment gifts are recognized at the Visitor Center.
A gift of $100,000 establishes a named endowment, and your name is listed as a major donor and included in Colonial Williamsburg's Annual Report.
Kimball Theatre Programming Endowment Fund
The Kimball Theatre in Williamsburg's Merchants Square offers excellent entertainment seven days a week. A first-rate movie house for more than six decades, the theater has become a favorite venue for Williamsburg's artistic, educational, religious, and cultural events. Visitors can listen to Colonial Williamsburg patriots such as George Washington and Patrick Henry, and musical and dramatic productions. Founding and sustaining benefactors are publicly recognized on permanent plaques in the theater's lobby. A gift of $5,000 will ensure that your name is listed as a major contributor.
To make a special gift to Colonial Williamsburg, call 1-888-CWF-1776 or email gifts@cwf.org.
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