On Sunday, December 1, 2024, nearly 2,100 Museum Stores representing all fifty states, 25 countries, and five continents will offer relaxing, inspired shopping inside your favorite museums and cultural institutions.
Museum Store Sunday offers a special shopping experience in one-of-a-kind stores, showcasing broad assortments of highly curated, unique, mission-specific gifts. From books to jewelry to children’s products to home accessories and gourmet food, there is something for everyone. Shop knowing you are supporting the missions and programs of each participating museum and cultural institution.
You are a patron by shopping for birthday gifts, life events, or other celebrations at a museum store. You are a patron by becoming a member of your favorite museum. You are a patron by enrolling in a class at your local museum. However you choose to Be A Patron, we thank you!
Be a Patron.
We invite you, your family, and your community, to “Be A Patron” at your favorite museums and cultural institutions on Sunday, December 1, 2024. Shoppers will not only find quality gifts filled with inspiration and educational value but through their purchases, will also directly support their favorite museums. When you, the patron, purchase a gift from the museum store, you help to sustain the museum’s service to the public.
The Barnes FoundationSHOP WITH PURPOSE
Patrons give gifts with purpose, to share the specialty, mission-related products that only Museum Stores offer. These products have been carefully curated to reflect the individual qualities and personalities of each institution.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco- de Young & Legion of HonorSHOP ALL YEAR ROUND
While there is only one Museum Store Sunday each year, we encourage you to “Be A Patron” of museum stores throughout the year. You are a patron by simply taking your family to a museum in your home town.
Dedicated directly to, and an integral department of, their institutions, museum stores operate as nonprofit retailers under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code and are a key earned-revenue department of the museum. As nonprofit retailers, museum stores further the educational mission of their institutions through the offering of products that allow the public to “take home” a part of the museum for their enjoyment and ongoing memory of their museum experience.
Museum visitors traditionally range from schoolchildren to professionals, from college students to retirees, and families to single adults. Museum stores engage children, teens, and young adults with store products that are educational. This engagement helps to create future audiences that can support the museum.
As museums and other cultural institutions embrace diversity and inclusion initiatives, museum stores are seen as familiar and welcoming entry avenues. Instead of “exiting through the store”, museum stores are important spaces that allow for accessible introductions for both regular and first-time museum visitors, especially as museums recover from the pandemic.
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Are you a museum store interested in participating? Join over 2,100 museums worldwide celebrating Museum Store Sunday. Registration takes just a few minutes.
