Celebrating 100 Years of Nurturing Discovery
The ROM experienced an incredible wave of affection felt in Toronto and beyond as we celebrated the Museum’s 100th anniversary and launched our $15M Love the ROM Centennial Campaign. The City of Toronto marked the Museum’s birthday by declaring March 19, 2014 Royal Ontario Museum Centennial Day and the CN Tower lit up in the ROM’s signature royal purple. This historic day was also captured by an incredible array of news outlets, trending on Twitter in Canada.
We gratefully accepted a $100K donation from the Bishop White Committee and celebrated $120K to the DMV’s Endowment Fund in honour of the ROM’s Centennial at a special Heritage Breakfast. A memorable press conference followed where Dianne Lister, President & CEO of the ROM Governors, launched the Campaign alongside lead donors Helga Schmidt and Hatch, a multidisciplinary professional services firm. “We are all here today because we love this Museum,” said Helga, applauding “100 years of dedication, passion and hard work that went into building the ROM—so that we, and the generations to come—could learn and be inspired.”
As ROM family and friends came together to celebrate, we also proudly recognized CIBC as our Centennial Partner, supporting a year-long of special programming and events. Donors to the Love the ROM Campaign will help realize a lively and meaningful civic green space, an innovative Director’s Fund to sustain the ROM for future generations, an essential Programming Fund to animate our Centres of Discovery, and an extraordinary Dawn of Life on Earth Gallery. With incredible generosity from the community, we have raised over 50 per cent of our $15M Campaign goal.