JANM Surpasses Its $85 Million Comprehensive Fundraising Campaign Goal

Editors please note: JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus and at other locations at janm.org/OnTheGo. 

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) announced today that its “Our Promise” comprehensive fundraising campaign has surpassed its goal of $85 million that raised funds to revitalize, amplify, deliver, and secure the Museum’s future and to support the Museum’s renovation of its public galleries and a new core exhibition. Thanks to the overwhelming response from the community, including forty-one leadership gifts of $500,000 and above, and the generosity from approximately 33,000 donors, JANM’s “Our Promise” campaign has raised 120% of the goal. As of December 31, 2025, the campaign raised $108 million. 

“JANM was founded on the promise that the Museum would stand as a beacon of civil rights to ensure that what happened to Japanese Americans in 1942 would never happen to any other community. Our promise is a cornerstone of who we are and our ballast as we transition into a new future for the Museum. It is also a rallying cry—forged in the power of memory not as nostalgia or remembrance but as resistance and resilience—that is needed now more than ever. With the completion of this campaign, JANM is continuing to deliver on this promise through a secure future and a transformation of its physical and digital presence, exhibitions, and programming. We are incredibly grateful for our donors’ unwavering generosity and investment into the Museum’s future, and we look forward to celebrating together when JANM reopens in late 2026,” said Ann Burroughs, JANM President and CEO.

Since the campaign’s start in 2019, over 7,000 new donors have joined it. The campaign was supported by 100% of JANM’s Board of Trustees. As of December 31, 2025, the board’s gifts totaled $9.8 million. JANM’s Volunteer Committee Campaign raised a total of $3.3 million. Over 3,450 JANM Members made contributions totaling $15,3432,731. Donors in Southern California raised $16 million while across the nation donors raised $92 million. 

The forty-one leadership gifts of $500,000 and above are those from MacKenzie Scott, Toshizo Watanabe Family Foundation, Ford Foundation, Perenchio Foundation, Kosasa Family, Yoshimi and Kikuko Nakauchi Trust, In honor of Weston & Megumi Koyama, Mitsuye Uchida Trust, Aratani Foundation, Ty T. Dote, LA Arts Recovery Fund, Tanaka Charitable Remainder Unitrust, Yamagata Foundation, Anonymous, Wendy Shiba and Lawrence Pittman, Anonymous, Earl K. and Katherine F. (Muto) Moore Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, Teru Kawa, Yoichi Komiyama Family, William T Fujioka and Darlene K. Kuba, Joe T. Kikue Shikami Trust, Takeo Yuki Charitable Trust, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., Setsuko Oka Trust, Tsutomu Ige Trust, Doizaki Family, Robert T. and Carolyn D. Fujioka, George and Brad Takei, Ken and Jo Ann Hamamura, Samuel H. Yamashita, Harold and Barbara Mikami Keimi, Anonymous, John Morey and Donna Ikeda, Rod and Elsie Nakamoto Family, Suzukamo Family, Gene & Mary Ochi/TheTambour Foundation, MUFG Bank, Ltd., W.M. Keck Foundation, and Anonymous. 

Other notable gifts include those from Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, The William Randolph Hearst Foundations, Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, SMBC Global Foundation, Suntory Holding Limited, Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Foundation, Sony, Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, Freeman Foundation, and Nissan Foundation. 

The campaign included $25 million to redesign and repurpose JANM’s main campus to provide more cohesive, innovative, and dynamic spaces for twenty-first century audiences. At the center of the renovation is JANM’s new core exhibition, In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Dreams of Democracy, which will span the period from early immigration in the 1800s to today with a nod to the future that includes interpretive strategies to allow visitors in the present to reckon with and understand experiences and issues of the past and the future. 

The new core exhibition will fill the newly redesigned galleries totalling 10,150 square feet on the first floor. Visitors will begin their journey into the new galleries through a relocated entrance into Aratani Central Hall, which will be transformed into a new lobby. JANM’s second-floor galleries will be reconfigured to include 6,300 square feet of continuous galleries that will allow JANM to present larger special exhibitions. 

In the Future We Call Now is sponsored by the Kosasa Family, The Ford Foundation, Earle K. and Katherine (Muto) Moore Foundation, National Park Service, Robert T. and Carolyn D. Fujioka, Randall R. Lee and Stella M. Jeong, Rod and Elsie Nakamoto Family, The Ahmanson Foundation, The William Randolph Hearst Foundations, Tanimura Family Foundation, Leslie Furukawa and John Hayashi, Gordon T. Yamate and Deborah A. Shiba, Koji and Angela Fukumura, Nikki Kodama and Family, The Grace Nixon Foundation, George and Hillary Hirose, Karen Ishizuka, Bryan Cooke, Rancho La Siesta LLC, Kato and Associates LLC, and Los Amigos Mobile Home Park LLC. This exhibition was also supported in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library. 

The virtual exhibition of In the Future We Call Now is being developed into an immersive experience with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator for Arts and Culture. The Bloomberg program supports leadership development and infrastructure investment that builds audiences, increases fundraising, drives revenue, and delivers dynamic programming.

During the renovation, JANM has been touring key exhibitions around the country, and hosting programs and events in the Historic Building and the Daniel K. Inouye National Center for the Preservation of Democracy (Democracy Center). The Museum continues its outreach with JANM on the Go, JANM’s schedule of special exhibitions, public programs, family festivals, education programs, and more on its campus, throughout Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Southern California, and beyond. Necessary improvements to heating, ventilation, and cooling for visitor comfort and the preservation of JANM’s historic collections are also planned. JANM plans to reopen its Pavilion in late 2026.

In addition to the capital improvements, the Our Promise campaign included funds to:

• Activate the Democracy Center as a platform for civic engagement with events and issues that shape our nation—such as race, the fragility of democracy, shared values, civil rights and social justice, and the arts.
• Power the Museum’s ability to tell stories in bold new ways, create new experiences using smart technology, share its resources nationally, and provide learning opportunities with general operating support.
• Secure JANM’s future by endowing core functions.

Learn more about the Museum’s four campaign promises, read featured stories, register for upcoming events, browse press releases, view press gallery images, download fact sheets, and more at janm.org/OurPromise.

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About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, JANM promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a center for civil rights, ensuring that the hard-fought lessons of the World War II incarceration are not forgotten. A Smithsonian Affiliate and one of America’s Cultural Treasures, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories. JANM is a center for the arts as well as history. It provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over one hundred exhibitions onsite while traveling forty exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. JANM’s Pavilion is closed for renovation; programs will continue on the JANM campus, throughout Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Southern California, and beyond from early January 2025 through late 2026. For more information, visit janm.org/OnTheGo or follow us on social media @jamuseum.