THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO SUPPORT the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, including monthly and annual gifts, described here, as well as gifts to our endowment established through your estate. Gifts of all sizes make big impacts at the Center, and your support helps us reach new milestones year after year. While the Internal Revenue Service defines “small” gifts as any under $5,000, no gifts are “small” to the Center. Such gifts directly fund our programs, and also count as “public” support—an important metric of not-for-profit organizational success.

You, our members and supporters, provide roughly half of the Center’s annual operating income, enabling every facet of our work, from archiving photography collections to hosting conferences, producing our magazine Railroad Heritage and our outstanding book series, and circulating traveling exhibitions. Your gifts also demonstrate your belief in the importance of our mission and work, increasing our ability to attract major gifts and grants, and to continue growing our endowment fund. Because of you, our future is bright!

Ongoing membership levels include:

Supporters: Up to $199
Supporters recognize our unique position as a nonprofit arts and educational organization. A gift of support helps us fund our office, operations, and publications so the Center can nurture and cultivate our community. Join us today in these efforts.

Friends: $200 to $499
The Center is fortunate to have individuals and organizations that make the Center part of their annual giving. Friends recognize our unique mission and the value we and our donors together provide to our arts, education, and railroad heritage communities.

Patrons: $500-$999
Patron-level support of the Center delivers the satisfaction of knowing that a gift will aid an organization that sees preservation and presentation as complementary. The Center provides advice and programs to photographers, artists, the public and museum communities about placement of collections, often being in a position to provide a home for them itself. Patrons take that extra step to help us maintain our commitment to preservation and presentation.

Benefactors: $1,000-$4,999
The Center sees railroad art and photography as legitimate artistic, educational, and historical endeavors, recognizing their value and promoting them as professional undertakings. This requires resources—to support and encourage artists, scholars, and writers to create and analyze new and past railroad artistry—and to produce traveling exhibitions, programs, Internet resources, and print publications. All of these are costly, especially because of our commitment to creating mainstream acceptance of railroad fine art. Benefactors recognize and support this challenge.

Leadership Circle: $5,000 and above
People interested in railroad art and photography often have an intellectual curiosity and a fiery passion for the subject. Leadership Circle members (private and corporate) see the Center as both an organization and an institution—committed to promoting and preserving our railroad heritage both today and tomorrow. Their participation demonstrates serious philanthropic investment in preserving railroad history through art and photography. Giving at this level paves the way for the Center’s long-term future and continued recognition of the importance of railroads and railroading to visual history.

Monthly Gifts
If you find it more convenient to express your support through a monthly gift rather than an annual contribution, PayPal will bill you automatically every month. Monthly gifts enable us to plan ahead; they sustain the Center and make our work possible. Should circumstances require that you discontinue giving, merely visit this page anytime and use the “unsubscribe” button.