Dear Friends:
We are pleased to announce officially our new name—The NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction—and that we have secured the necessary funding from Cumberland County and the City of Fayetteville to almost complete our fundraising effort from public sources! We’re very grateful to the City, County, and State of North Carolina for their support, and we look forward to many decades of mutual benefit to our community, our state, and our residents.
Our fundraising for the project isn’t finished, however. We still must raise between $8 million and $10 million from private sources—individuals, corporations, and foundations—to create this stunning, technologically advanced educational center for students of all ages with interactive exhibits, factual digital content, and outreach across the state of North Carolina and its public and private school systems.
As an appropriate beginning to this next, critical segment of our fundraising campaign, the Cumberland Community Foundation (CCF) has invited us to participate in its GivingTuesday program along with 75 other nonprofit organizations. GivingTuesday falls on the day after CyberMonday each year, following Thanksgiving weekend. This year’s date is November 29. CCF and some other very generous donors have offered to amplify all eligible gifts–to the first $5,000–received at CCF between 9:00 a.m. on November 21 and 5:00 p.m. on November 30.
A $475,000 matching fund has been established with gifts from the following: Fayetteville New Car Dealers, the Family of Eleanor and Raymond Manning, an anonymous donor, CCF Board members and Board alumni, CCF unrestricted endowments, and Elizabeth M. “Beth” Keeney. CCF will acknowledge your gift for tax purposes.
Please download this brief document, https://tinyurl.com/Giving-Tuesday-Ways-to-Give, for important information about making eligible gifts.
You can make a direct donation via this link, which will only be active from 9:00 a.m. November 21 through 5:00 p.m. November 30: https://tinyurl.com/HistoryCenterCCF Or you can mail a check, made payable and addressed to CCF at PO Box 2345, Fayetteville, NC 28302. Be sure to indicate “GivingTuesday: History Center” in the memo line. Mailed checks must reach CCF by 5:00 p.m. November 30 to qualify for the match. They can also be hand-delivered to CCF at 308 Green Street, Fayetteville, by putting into the secure mail slot in the front door.
Gifts that don’t meet the qualifications will still be accepted on the History Center’s behalf, but they will not be eligible for the GivingTuesday matching program. That includes cash (dollars and coins), gifts received outside of the timeframe, gifts not made payable to CCF, gifts from donors that require special reporting or grant agreements, gifts from government entities, or gifts to other funds at CCF.
In the meantime, the History Center’s leadership is refining the plans for its new facilities, grounds, and exhibits. We expect to complete the outdoor pavilion in 2023 and the main facility in FY 2026-2027. Twenty-one renowned historians have written “white papers” for digital content on such topics as the “Lost Cause” narrative creation, women and children and the homefront, the Ku Klux Klan, religion and spirituality, medicine and public health, Native Americans, voter disenfranchisement, mental health, and sharecropping.
We also have begun work on a new website that will be modern, vibrant, user-friendly, and packed with vetted stories and historical content from the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras. Please continue sending us your stories! https://nccivilwar.wpengine.com/share-a-story/
We are most grateful for all you are doing to help us with this worthy project, and we hope you will participate in the GivingTuesday program in cooperation with the Cumberland Community Foundation and other generous donors.
Our best wishes to you and yours for a joyous holiday season.
John McD. Healy, Chair, Board of Directors
mhealy (at) healywholesale (dot) com
910-977-0287 (cell)
In remembrance of our friend and Board member Philip Gerard, 1955 – 2022.
