Donating to the CHM Collection

Due to the volume of offers the Chicago History Museum receives, we cannot accept donated objects, images, or documents unless you first submit a completed donation form for review. If you have material that you believe would add to the Chicago History Museum’s collection, please use the Online Collection Donation Form. Please try to be as detailed as possible and include a photograph and measurements of the objects, images, or documents.

Once the form is received, it will be sent to a curator who will conduct an initial assessment of the materials. If we are interested in accepting your donation, Museum staff will work with you to receive the objects, images, or documents. A curator will present your historical materials along with a recommendation for acquisition to the Donation Inquiries Team. If the Team expresses interest, a member of the curatorial department will contact you for any necessary follow-up information and/or logistics coordination.

Once the curatorial team meets with you to receive materials, a Temporary Custody of Receipt is issued, a copy is provided to you, necessary Museum personnel, and one will remain with the material. While the object is held in temporary custody by the Museum, a team of curatorial and collections staff will prepare materials to present to the Collections Committee. The Collections Committee gathers every other month to determine if items will be accepted into our permanent collection.

Following acceptance by the Collections Committee, your materials will become part of the Museum’s permanent collection and you will be issued a deed of gift to document the transfer of objects, images, or documents to the Museum. If you have questions, concerns, or wish to check on the status of your proposed donation, please contact us.

The Museum does not accept donations through the mail or in person unless prior arrangements have been made with the appropriate curatorial or collection staff member.

Donation offers are reviewed first by the curatorial staff who make recommendations to the Donation Inquiries Team and then Collections Committee. These teams are composed of staff knowledgeable in both the scope of the Museum’s collection and the conservation issues associated with object, image, and document care.

The committee uses the criteria specified in the Museum Collecting Scope and Criteria, as well as its current collecting goals, to guide its decisions. It also takes into consideration the condition of the objects, images, or documents and the availability of Museum resources required to store and care for them as well as making them accessible. The sensitive nature of the objects, images, or documents or ownership of copyrights may also factor into acquisitions decisions.

Typically, the process takes about three months. If we are interested in accepting your donation, Museum staff will work with you to receive the objects, images, or documents. A curator will present your historical materials along with a recommendation for acquisition at the Staff Collection Committee, which meets every two months (please note, regular reviews may be postponed when staff time is otherwise committed to the development of exhibitions or special programs). Following acceptance by the Staff Collection Committee, you will be issued a deed of gift to document your transfer of the objects, images, or documents to the Museum.

The Museum does not provide appraisals of the monetary value of proposed donations or for any other reason because the Internal Revenue Service regards museums and libraries as interested parties. Monetary appraisals prepared for donors by such institutions are subject to question or disqualification.

Professional appraisers, however, will perform this service for a fee. To find a licensed appraiser in your area, contact one of the following organizations for a referral: the American Society of Appraisers, the International Society of Appraisers, or the Appraisers Association of America.

The Chicago History Museum is recognized as a qualified charitable organization; thus your donation of historical materials to the Museum’s collection is generally tax deductible. To take advantage of your deduction, you must file tax form 1040 and, depending on the total value of your non-cash charitable donations for the year, you may also be required to submit tax form 8283.

To ensure that you receive the maximum tax benefit, it is recommended that you consult with your own accountant, attorney, and/or the Internal Revenue Service. You may also consult Internal Revenue Service Publication No. 526, Charitable Contributions, and Publication No. 561, Determining the Value of Donated Property.

The Museum cannot guarantee that any historical materials donated to the collection will be exhibited unless expressly collected for that purpose. Only a small fraction of the collection is on view at any given time.

Objects, images, and documents from the collection are occasionally loaned to other institutions for temporary exhibitions, and many historical materials in the collection are made available for research purposes.

The Museum cannot return accessioned collection objects, images, and documents to the donor. Once the Staff Collection Committee accepts your donation for the collection, you will be asked to sign a deed of gift, which legally transfers ownership of the historical materials to the Museum.

The Museum may, with approval from the Board of Trustees, remove historical materials from the collection through a process called deaccessioning. Objects, images, or documents that conform to our deaccessioning criteria as described in the Museum’s Collections Management Policy (e.g., historical materials that are determined to be outside the scope of the Museum’s collections; inauthentic, misidentified, or misattributed; pose a risk to other objects in the collection; or have deteriorated beyond reasonable repair) may be considered for deaccessioning. Deaccessioned historical material may be donated to another museum or cultural or educational organization, destroyed, sold, or disposed in another manner that the Museum deems fit. Any proceeds from the sale of deaccessioned historical material are placed in a restricted collection acquisition fund.

The Museum does not accept long-term loans. While it does accept loan items on a short-term basis in conjunction with exhibitions and other programs, the Museum prefers to commit its resources to the storage and preservation of historical materials in the collection.

Museum holdings (Architecture [fragments and models], Costumes and Textiles, Decorative and Industrial Arts, and Paintings and Sculpture) are available to researchers on a limited basis.

The vast majority of the Museum’s research holdings (Architecture [drawings and records], Archives and Manuscripts, Books and Other Published Materials, and Prints and Photographs) are available to researchers through the Museum’s Research Center.

Please see the Collections page for information on accessing these historical materials.

Yes, CHM no longer collects some historical objects, images, and documents.

Home Movies and Amateur Films
The Museum does not accept donations of home movies and amateur films for the collection. Please consider donating your home movies and amateur films to the Chicago Film Archives or the South Side Home Movie Project.

Chicago’s World’s Fairs Publications and Souvenirs
The Museum does not accept donations of publications or souvenirs from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and the 1933–34 A Century of Progress International Exposition for the collection.

Costumes
The Museum does not accept donations of wedding gowns for the collection.

Photographs
The Museum does not accept donations of unidentified photographs for the collection.

World War II Materials
The Museum does not accept donation of material related to Chicagoans’ or other Americans’ service experiences in World War II for the collection. The only exceptions are materials related to servicemen and women while training or stationed in Chicago and material that documents the home front experience in Chicago during World War II. Consider donating your World War II material to the Pritzker Military Museum & Library.