Amid Culture Wars, Atlanta Civil Rights Museum Banks On New Expansion

After a round of renovations, the expanded National Center for Civil and Human Rights is touting its enhanced capabilities as an events space and meeting hall in the hopes that increased event revenue will offset drop-offs in giving.

It’s a critical pivot for the museum, which just completed a nearly $57M expansion that freed up the entire bottom floor for classroom and meeting spaces. Center CEO Jill Savitt is seeking to generate an additional $1M annually by hosting meetings, private events and other gatherings.

“Our space before was not large enough to throw off the revenue that we needed,” Savitt said. 

The necessity for new funding streams has grown acute. Savitt estimates that gifts are down as much as 50% this year, especially from funders who have given in past years but failed to do so this year. 

Museums have long offered space for public gatherings, but the revenue such spaces bring in has become mission-critical for some institutions as the Trump administration has changed the funding landscape and criticized and targeted institutions that center DEI in their work, Savitt and other museum experts interviewed for this story said. 

The administration’s rhetoric against institutional speech that focuses on diversity and inclusion has scared off private companies and foundations from donating to these museums, Anne Bergeron, a museum consultant, said.

This, coupled with direct federal spending cuts, has the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and other museums scrambling to find ways to make up for the losses. 

“It’s real. People are not just crying wolf,” Bergeron said. “It’s created fear on the part of the corporate community to appear they have stepped out of line.”

Bergeron said museums relying on event revenues is not an uncommon pivot during shifting political winds, especially for performing arts organizations. 

“Corporate support has always walked a fine line,” she said. 

Because of the pronounced drop in corporate and individual giving to the museum, Savitt said renting out meeting space is “an organizational top priority” in the coming year. 

“We're in an environment where museums that are teaching civil rights history are seeing a decline in their philanthropy, especially with corporations,” she said.

With construction beginning in February 2024, the museum added 28K SF to the three-story facility's existing 42K SF footprint. Juneau Construction Co. was tapped to do the expansion. 

The project includes a new west wing, named after Atlanta philanthropist Arthur M. Blank, that includes new galleries, the cafe and retail space, and enhanced exhibit areas. The east side’s two-story Shirley Clarke Franklin Pavilion, named for the former Atlanta mayor, includes the conference and classroom spaces on the bottom floor and a rooftop terrace that also can be used as event space. 

Juneau Construction CEO Nancy Juneau said there was a lot of pressure to avoid cost increases to keep the expansion within budget. Sacrifices were made, she said, including stripping out some planned interactive technologies in new exhibits.

The museum opened its new wings in October.

Many other museums are under similar budgetary pressures because of a pronounced drop in donations. 

A third of the 511 museums surveyed by the American Alliance of Museums reported having government grants or contracts canceled in 2025. Many of the cancellations came from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Of those institutions, 67% said they have not been able to replace lost funding from other sources, 24% have had to cancel student programs and other events, 28% have reduced public programming and 21% have deferred facility improvements or construction, according to AAM’s November survey.

“Museum directors anticipate continued disruption in 2026 from shifts in philanthropy, inflation, financial and market instability, changes to travel and tourism, and a reduction or elimination of government funding,” the organization said in its report.

Savitt said the civil rights museum takes very little funding from the federal government. Much of the construction of the initial museum in 2014 and its subsequent expansion was paid for with private donations. 

More critical for its operations, though, is corporate philanthropy, Savitt said. She’s been told directly that these entities are being careful to avoid the Trump administration’s crosshairs when it comes to DEI.  

“We have been told that ‘civil rights’ can be viewed as risky for corporate foundations because the topic could be viewed as a stand-in for support for DEI or diversity, which is out of favor in the current environment,” Savitt said in an email. 

Savitt, however, dismisses any notion that addressing and showcasing the civil rights movement and the history of slavery in the U.S. is a DEI effort.

“We believe we tell the story of American history about what makes America truly great, which is the expansion of human freedom, that abolition and emancipation [are] a shining moment for our country. These are the most American of ideals,” she said. 

Center Chief Operating Officer Donald Byrd said facility rentals are quickly becoming a critical component for the organization in the anti-DEI environment. 

“It’s a bigger part of a business model than it’s ever been before,” Byrd said. 

The backlash against DEI discussions has been brewing since the first Trump administration, and the center began to raise money for its event space expansion back in 2022.

In 2024, 34% of museum directors in another American Alliance of Museums survey said they had already experienced DEI backlash, with 11% saying they felt pressure from donors about the subject. 

However, the pullback of funding has accelerated with President Donald Trump’s second term.

The Stonewall National Museum, Archives & Library, a Fort Lauderdale museum aimed at preserving LGBTQ+ art and culture, saw expected corporate philanthropy pull back by $500K since Trump took office, CEO Robert Kesten said. That led the museum to up fundraising efforts to make up for the lost revenue.

“For us, being a relatively small organization, that’s a lot of money,” Kesten said. “People are very reluctant to even talk to us, let alone contribute.”

Savitt said many companies that may have been direct donors in the past are at least willing to rent out the civil rights museum’s event space instead.

“What it means for us and other cultural institutions is if you’re a nonprofit that is in the lucky spot where you can generate your own revenue, generate your own revenue,” she said.