Science Museum of Minnesota

Science Museum of Minnesota

The Science Museum of Minnesota was founded in 1907 as The Saint Paul Institute of Science and Letters, making it one of the oldest scientific institutions in the Upper Midwest. It has operated from its current 370,000-square-foot riverfront facility on the Mississippi since 1999, following a $100 million capital campaign. The endowment exists solely to support the museum's educational mission, which serves roughly one million visitors annually through its permanent galleries, traveling exhibitions, and the namesake William L. McKnight-3M Omnitheater. The endowment deploys capital across a notably diversified manager roster for its size. Exposure spans venture capital, growth equity, buyout funds, secondaries, and natural resources, reflecting a multi-manager approach that favors fund commitments over direct deals. The portfolio draws on relationships cultivated through Minnesota's deep corporate community — 3M, Target, and Ecolab have each served as major institutional donors, and board-level ties to HealthPartners and other regional anchors inform a network that gives the investment committee visibility into local private-market opportunities. Geographic exposure is concentrated in North America with select developed-market allocations. Team size is not publicly disclosed, but the endowment operates under the governance of the museum's board of trustees, with President and CEO Alison Rempel Brown providing executive oversight. In addition to its financial portfolio, the institution holds tangible assets including its permanent collection and the museum building at 120 West Kellogg Boulevard. The museum maintains reciprocal admission partnerships through the Association of Science-Technology Centers and professional affiliation with the American Alliance of Museums, expanding its institutional reach beyond Minnesota. This endowment is structurally distinct from most foundation pools: it supports an operating nonprofit with earned revenue from admissions, retail, and Omnitheater ticket sales that partially offsets the annual draw requirement. That hybrid funding model — earned income layered atop endowment distributions and corporate sponsorships — allows the investment committee to take a longer-duration posture than a grantmaking foundation of comparable size, while the multi-manager fund-of-funds architecture avoids the operational burden of a direct investment program that a $42M pool could not efficiently staff.