$5M - Mint Museum's Biggest Gift

The $5.2 million gift is from the estate of Nancy Akers Wallace. Mint Museum officials say it will go directly to the museum's endowment fund. Mint Museum Executive Director Phil Kline says the interest alone will help fund the museum's offerings. "What this will be able to do is help with the cost of bringing shows to Charlotte from other institutions, the cost of running our own exhibitions that we'll present in the future. And probably every year, some portion of the fund will be used for educational programming," he says. Kline says the money will be especially helpful to pay for operations of the museum's expanded facilities in uptown Charlotte. He says last month, the museum got a $5 million grant toward construction of the expansion project.