Campaign Success! Anniversary Giving Drive Raises $25,000 for the Austin History Center
To celebrate over four decades of preserving Austin’s story, AHCA launched an Anniversary Giving Campaign with a $25,000 goal, and thanks to our community, we met it.
This year, AHCA launched our Anniversary Giving Campaign to celebrate our milestone of over four decades of preserving and sharing our city’s unique history. While our organization’s roots were formed in 1979, it wasn’t until October 5, 1981, that we became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and that anniversary of the AHCA birthday became the occasion for this year’s campaign.
The year has been a challenging stretch for our small nonprofit. The move to the six-story John Henry Faulk Building from the historic 1933 building demanded the efforts of all of our staff and volunteer resources. The Austin History Center houses millions of materials and collections, meaning our collective efforts were directed toward trying to unpack and digitize the collections. During the turbulent move, the center was plagued by a massive backlog of uncataloged materials, and in February, due to technological issues beyond our control, the History Center had to close its doors completely, forcing it into a rolling, indefinite closure that limited public interaction, slowed staff research and cut off the everyday foot traffic that keeps a history center connected to its people and community.
Inside the historic 1933 building.
Through it all, our supporters didn’t waver. We called on our Friends of Austin’s History, who are as passionate as we are about our local history, and set a goal of raising $25,000 by the end of October to help us prepare for a grand opening later that year at our newly expanded campus in the renovated John Henry Faulk Library Building, and we are thrilled to share that, with the help of our community uplifting us, we reached it.
As a Friend of Austin’s History, thank you. Running a small nonprofit means facing everyday obstacles, and your commitment is what keeps AHCA going. We can’t express enough how much it means to know our community is behind us.
Every dollar raised in this campaign (and year-round!) goes straight toward:
- Direct financial support, special project support, community programming and advocacy efforts
- Keeping history accessible by hosting free events for Austin history lovers of all backgrounds and interests
- Sharing stories through Waterloo Press publications, oral histories and social media content
- Shaping the future of the Austin History Center campus through vision planning, in partnership with the Austin History Center
- Sustaining the operational strength of our nonprofit
… and so much more!
Join us as we enter a new era of the Austin History Center. We host group tours throughout the afternoon, and we have big visions to keep scaling our impact for the History Center and the Austin community at large.
Support our work by joining the Giving Circle with a monthly gift, or by making a one-time donation today.
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Every gift keeps the History Center’s programs, preservation and oral histories going. Monthly donors make up the Giving Circle, and their steady support is what sustains this work.