Making Waves Across the Nation

Every gift to the National Museum of the Great Lakes creates a ripple effect. Your support helps us preserve, share, and celebrate the remarkable stories of the Great Lakes, create meaningful experiences, and bring important conversations to audiences near and far. From students exploring the Col. James M. Schoonmaker Museum Ship to divers uncovering shipwrecks, your generosity makes it all possible. This year, those ripples helped us make waves across the nation, earning national recognition and reaching more people than ever before. As we look ahead, your support will keep that momentum moving forward.

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Your Impact

See What Your Gift Can Do

Every gift becomes part of something bigger. Your support helps care for our collections and historic vessels, create exhibitions and educational experiences, expand access to the museum, and share Great Lakes stories with audiences everywhere.

Our Impact

Our Impact is Growing

Every gift becomes part of something bigger. Your support helps care for our collections and historic vessels, create exhibitions and educational experiences, expand access to the museum, and share Great Lakes stories with audiences everywhere.

Opening Doors to Discovery

Your gift ensures learning happens in many ways at the National Museum of the Great Lakes. Through engaging programs, exhibits, interactive field trips, hands-on experiences, and opportunities to explore Great Lakes careers, we connect students and our community with the people, places, and ideas that have shaped our region and inspire them to see themselves in its future.

Expanding the Great Lakes Conversation

Our impact – with your support – reaches beyond our museum walls. Through partnerships, we’re helping establish Toledo as a Great Lakes cruise destination, convening environmental & water quality discussions, and creating more welcoming and accessible ways for people to experience the museum. And through digital storytelling, we’re bringing stories, ideas, and conversations to audiences around the world.

Fitz

A Tribute That Brought a Community Together

The 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald demonstrates how a powerful story brings people together. Working alongside local businesses, cultural organizations, and community partners, we transformed a significant anniversary into a shared Toledo experience, welcoming nearly 3,000 visitors from across the U.S. and Canada. Together, we honored the 29 men who were lost, strengthened Toledo’s connection to this nationally significant story, and showed what can happen when a community comes together around its Great Lakes history.

Currents of Change

Expanding the Stories We Tell

With Currents of Change: The Living History of the Great Lakes, we explored a new chapter in Great Lakes history. This was our first exhibit focused on ecology - examining how centuries of human activity have shaped the lakes. More than 25,000 visitors experienced the exhibit, made possible with the expertise and support of partners throughout the Great Lakes region. Researchers, universities, DNRs, national marine sanctuaries, conservation groups, and other environmental organizations helped contribute and review content, and our further research highlights many of the organizations leading this work today. Those collaborations strengthened relationships across the region and laid the groundwork for what comes next, including bringing ecological history into our permanent museum experience.

Planned Giving

Did You Know? You Can Leave a Legacy on the Lakes

Your support today helps us share the Great Lakes story—but you can also make a lasting impact for generations to come. Through planned giving, you can include the National Museum of the Great Lakes in your estate or financial plans, ensuring the stories of our region continue long into the future.

Planned gifts often allow donors to make a greater contribution than they ever thought possible, while also providing meaningful benefits such as tax savings and charitable deductions. It’s a powerful way to carry your story forward and keep Great Lakes history alive.

Interested in supporting the Annual Fund through a gift of stock or IRA Rollover? Contact Sara Smith at sara.smith@nmgl.org or 419-214-5000 ext. 207.

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A Note on Tax Benefits

Your support makes all the difference—and it may also come with tax advantages. Thanks to recent changes, your donation may now qualify for a tax deduction even if you don’t itemize. Be sure to consult with your financial or tax advisor to explore how your generosity today could also benefit you.

Increase Your Impact

Many employers offer matching gift programs and will match the cash, check, credit card, and stock gifts of employees, retirees, as well as spouses, so you may have an easy opportunity to double or even triple your impact. Please reach out to your employer to find out if they will match your donation!

Help Us Keep Making Waves

This year showed just how far a Great Lakes story can travel. Your year-end gift will help us preserve more stories, reach more people, and create even more opportunities to experience and understand the Great Lakes in the year ahead.

Make your gift today and help us keep making waves.

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