Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota
July 24, 2023
Amount Requested$10,000.00
224 Lamm Streeet
Mankato, Minnesota 56001
Louise Dickmeyer
CEO
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- Broaden Perspectives Through Art, Culture, Literature or Extracurricular Experiences
General Operating
The mission of the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota is to ignite the natural curiosity of every child through the power of play in a dynamic, awe-inspiring environment.
$10,000.00
$57,085.00
$1,152,483.00
Yes
The Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota is embarking on a multi-year expansion that will create a three-acre campus and a new nature-based play experience. This is a one-of-a-kind experience for children and families in Minnesota. Moving forward with its expansion, the museum will be building on a resilient foundation. Unlike 20 years ago, today’s CMSM is an established community asset and a familiar destination for play and learning.
The CMSM has retained museum planning experts, Jeanne Vergeront and Jim Roe to define a new Strategic Master Plan through three phases of work. Phase I: Museum Expansion Framework was completed in October 2022. Phase II: Visitor Experience Plan will begin in the fourth quarter of 2023. This grant will support this next phase of the planning process.
Phase One identified three strategic level goals focused on the Museum’s Expansion, each one centered on one of the major projects of the expansion. At the same time, the goals will activate the Museum’s Vision and Mission and advance its long-term interests. As a catalyst for a stronger, more vibrant community around play and well-being, the Museum will create:
1. NATURE PLAYSCAPE, a year-round, half-acre for outdoor play, is designed with settings that encourage physical movement, free-flowing discovery, and active exploration of natural materials. GOAL - Expand and deepen the community’s tangible commitment to year-round nature play in children’s lives.
2. SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE is a suite of inclusive and accessible spaces and services including Sensory Space and Sensing Nature. GOAL - Promote equitable access to sensory exploration and nature play for children with a wide range of abilities.
3. LOOSE PARTS PLAY HUB is a multi-dimensional resource centered on the play and learning value of materials that can be gathered, carried, lined up, taken apart and put back together in unscripted ways for exploration, making, and arts. GOAL - Firmly establish itself as a recognized regional leader and advocate around the power of play for all children regardless of backgrounds and abilities.
100,000 visitors annually: children, families, southern MN school groups, MN, USA and the world.
Greater Mankato and surrounding 17-county area of southern MN plus visitors from across MN.
Planning goals
A. Understand CMSM and its position in the community by:
• Exploring the Museum’s community connections;
• Listening to friends, members, supporters in conversations with individuals and groups;
• Testing current mission, vision, values, audience, and museum goals and impacts.
B. Clarify what the Museum sees as its value to children, families, and community.
C. Frame the opportunity for CMSM’s expansion.
D. Consolidate CMSM’s driving ideas around exploration, play, and learning.
The CMSM has engaged expert Museum Planners, Jim Roe, Jim Roe Museum Planning, and Jeanne Vergeront, Vergeront Museum Planning to lead us through an 18-month, three phase planning effort. The goal of this work is to guide the expansion of nature play and ensure it melds with the existing Museum exhibit galleries and outdoor nature play exhibits.
Phase II: Visitor Experience Plan
This phase of planning answers the question, “What will an expanded CMSM mean for visitors?”
Planning goals
A. Build the Museum’s capacity to understand and shape the physical setting and environment to support and enhance children’s development, exploration, play, and learning, especially for outdoor play, inclusion, and accommodating neuro diversity by:
• Studying existing outdoor play environments, visiting sites, conversations with leaders in the field;
• Learning from existing inclusion practices and programs for neuro diverse audiences in museums.
B. Explore the physical and programmatic relationships between the various structures and landscapes proposed for the new CMSM campus, planning with children and families in mind, by:
• Gathering first-hand experiences from sites with similar campuses;
• Researching and discussing precedents that can’t be visited.
C. Develop a comprehensive range of visitor experience concepts—from area-wide overviews to individual settings and activities through facilitated workshops.
Deliverables
A. Visitor Experience Plan: Building on the Museum Expansion Framework, this plan will guide and inform the design of all new facilities and offerings with a special focus on children and families. It will include all outdoor play activities and landscapes and new exhibits and programs.
B. Site Analysis: A set of scenarios that address a range of factors, including accessibility, seasonal changes, safety and security, family visits, school visits, sightlines and landmarks, wayfinding, circulation, etc.
C. Written Experience Concepts: From area-wide overviews to individual settings and activities.
The CMSM uses a Blackbaud database that tracks all revenue, members, donors, and quantifies all visitors by age and location. Once the expansion is complete we will be able to measure increase in visitorship, expanded school group visits, community partner use of the facility, and will quantify expanded services to children and families.
10/01/2023
06/01/2024
The CMSM Board of Directors has representatives from Business, Education, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Legal, and Nonprofits. Presently 16% of directors are within the BIPOC population.
The CMSM recruited members of the community representing key organizations to serve on the Museum Planning Committee: Mankato Clinic, Mayo Clinic Health System, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Greater Mankato Area United Way, Xcel Energy and retired early educators.
The Community Backdrop Report for Phase One Planning was derived from conversations with representatives from Museum member families, ISD #77 - Mankato Area Public Schools, Mayo Clinic Health System, My Place Youth Center, Cities of Mankato and North Mankato, Minnesota Autism Center, YWCA of Mankato and Gustavus Adolphus College.
On an annual basis, the CMSM partners with Gateway to Play Community Partners who play a key role in passing along information about Museum access opportunities to the families that they serve. We currently have 60+ Gateway to Play Community Partners. The Gateway to Play Membership is given to a family facing barriers. The CMSM strives to maintain one-third of all memberships in the GTP category. As of 7.24.23 of the 2,686 Members 816 are GTP (30%). Community Partner organizations include Head Start, ECHO Food Shelf, the MN Council of Churches and YWCA Refugee Service programs, Mankato Area Public Schools Teenage Parent and Achievement/Integration programs, Partners for Housing and Connections Ministry Homeless shelters, to name a few.
Museum Planning Phase Two will start in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The expansion is a 3-5 year effort that will include construction of a new building, added outdoor exhibits and the conversion of existing office space to an exhibit for children with neuro-sensitivities.
Signed-Final-Report-and-Financial-Statements-Electronic-copy.pdf
Unapproved