We did it!!

Last night, our supporters proved that there IS a future for the City Reliquary Museum on Metropolitan Avenue! With the help of hundreds of sustainable memberships, we were able to reach our goal, securing a new path forward for our beloved community-built organization.

This has not been simply an “end-of-the-year” fund drive, or a way to help a small business survive a global health tragedy. This is a new model for our long-term viability that will last us as long as our members are by our side.

If you became a member over the past two months, you didn’t simply get us over a hurdle, you established a new road ahead. You committed to helping us see beyond the current challenges and provided us with a backbone that will help us thrive.

Having met our most basic needs for survival in the storefront space, we are now working to rebuild our coffers to support the programming and exhibitions we will once again be able to deliver in our Williamsburgh home.

As more memberships continue to push us past our basic goal, we are able to start thinking about what more we can do beyond simply paying the storefront rent.

Additional memberships and donations will help us; rehire our one part-time administrative staff position, resume efforts to catalog our collections and make them accessible to remote visitors, and resume planning for the public exhibitions we’ve put on hold since the summer.

Just weeks ago, we had to consider the very real thought that this would be the end of the road for the museum as we knew it. Now we see that it is the end of what we once knew, but for the better. Rather than packing and relocating countless city relics, we can once again plan on delivering the unique blend of art, history, and civic pride that made us a part of this community.

The work has not ended; your support has just made it possible to begin once again.

With most civic gratitude,
Dave Herman
Founder,
City Reliquary Museum
& Civic Organization

Dear Friends of the Reliquary,

We’ve made it to the FINAL 24 HOURS of our Sustainability Drive with the help and encouragement of so many friends both old and new. Each day we see new sustainable memberships coming in, inching us closer to our very-real goal of $3,000/month of recurring funds needed.  We have now received more than 90% of our goal!

We’re very very close, but it is not quite “in the bag.” We need to secure renewing memberships from ALL of our friends who have NOT YET SIGNED UP, and who still believe our Williamsburgh home should, can, and WILL SURVIVE!

During the nearly 20 years of our existence, I’ve heard two questions over and over, year after year: “What is this place?!?” and “How does this exist?!?” Much to my dismay, the answer to the latter has often been, “As if by magic.” For years, the City Reliquary has survived on good will, copious amounts of volunteer efforts, and repeated pleas for donations to help keep the whole operation afloat. For years, we’ve tried one creative approach after another, trying to invent a new sustainable model for an alternative, small-town museum to exist in the biggest of cities. 

In recent years, we had become more reliant on what thankfully seemed to be a steady source of income; museum admissions by international and domestic tourists.  Many larger museums would be proud of the impressive percentage of funding that we received from patrons walking in our front door. We ARE very proud of this fact, but no single source of revenue can truly sustain any organization.  And, in the wake of a worldwide pandemic, we are left brutally aware of this.  

So, two months ago we put out the call to our fans. We acknowledged that admissions, events, and one-time donations had been enough to get us this far, but NOT ENOUGH to secure a stable future in our Metropolitan Avenue location. The only way to keep on our current path would be through a large number of small and steady monthly and annual contributions.  With our friends at (ironically) WithFriends, we set up this new model of sustainable support. Over the past 9 weeks, we’ve been given a new hope for survival by hundreds of friends; some we’ve known since the Reliquary was a tiny window display on Grand Street, and some fans we never knew we had until now.

Which brings us to this moment… 

We are literally inches away from the finish line.  With just 24 hours left to go, we need just $300/month or $3,600/annually to meet our goal, keeping the City Reliquary in its Metropolitan Avenue location, and securing its future for as long as we have all of you by our side.  With membership levels that begin at just $10/month, we can get to this goal with ONLY 30 MORE friends joining us NOW!

What’s most promising about this moment, is the new optimism we’ve seen in recent weeks giving hope for a stronger City Reliquary community; not only for keeping the rent paid, but for breathing new life into a creative and unique space that can support the art, history, diversity, and civic pride that our city needs.

With most civic gratitude and solidarity,

Dave Herman, Founder

City Reliquary Museum & Civic Organization