The museum closes for good on September 27 unless something changes.
We are volunteers working to change it.

What your money does

Every dollar goes to the campaign's public work.

Print and signage: flyers, posters, banners and Save The Academy hand fans for the museum's last open days, and the events after.
Events: permits, sound, tables and supplies for public gatherings and school outreach.
Getting people there: transit, out-of-pocket costs for volunteers covering events, press, and public meetings.
The tools for the website, the email list, and the story wall.

How it is handled

This project is fiscally sponsored by the Center for Philadelphia's Urban Future (CPUF), a Philadelphia nonprofit. CPUF receives and holds every contribution, pays approved expenses against receipts, and keeps 5% to cover its costs. Every contribution and every expense is public on this page. We report spending against our budget monthly. Funds pay for public education, community organizing and events; none of it goes to political candidates or election campaigns, and lobbying stays a small, tracked part of what we do.

What is going on?

On September 1, 2026, Drexel University and the Academy Board announced that the Academy of Natural Sciences' public museum at 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway will close at the end of the month. Announcing closure just weeks beforhand?! We do not accept this direction.

The Academy of Natural Sciences is an irreplaceable scientific and cultural landmark.
From Thomas Jefferson’s fossils to plant specimens from the Lewis and Clark expedition, the priceless 19 million specimens draw researchers from around the world.

The opening of the public museum in 1828, established a forum for presenting the collections, sharing knowledge, educating students, and inspiring the next generation of scientists. For generations of Philadelphia school children, the Academy is where a dinosaur first stopped being just a picture in a book or screen.

The Academy is the oldest natural history museum in the United States, and yet, in our country’s 250th year, it is slated to close.

The Save the Academy Coalition is a volunteer group of scientists, teachers, Academy members, Philadelphians and more who found each other in the week after the announcement. In two weeks we have put more than 300 people on the Parkway, drawn a following of 4,000 on our instagram, gathered more than 7,500 petition signatures, built a website with action items and a wall of community stories. We've brought City Council to the table: on September 17, Councilmembers Nina Ahmad and Jeffery Young Jr. introduced a resolution calling for hearings on the closure.

Your monetary support empowers us to amp up our efforts.

Who we are

We are not affiliated with the Academy of Natural Sciences or with Drexel University. We are the people who love the museum and want it open.
Read more, sign the petition and share your story at https://save-the-academy.org/

Any leftover funds at the end of the campaign will go to the care of the Academy research collections or museum.

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