Elizabeth Dampier and Paul Kortenaar were once competitors—executive directors,
respectively, of the Children’s Museum of Winston-Salem and SciWorks. Then they ended up working side-by- side as leaders of what came to be known as Kaleideum, the product of their two nonprofits that merged in 2016. The joint executive directors made the merger look seamless, but in truth they had to summon the same qualities they seek to instill in every child who walks through the doors of Kaleideum: creativity, collaboration, risk-taking, and perseverance.
“It would have been simpler to continue as we were, but if we hoped to develop risk-
taking in the children of this community, we had to demonstrate that as well,” Kortenaar says. “Bringing the two together involved perseverance and a lot of creativity on the part of board members and staff who were willing to think about what a new museum would be like. Collaboration is much more difficult, but ultimately, much more fruitful.” “We were two healthy organizations,” Dampier adds. “Rather than focusing on our own needs, we took the initiative to think about how we could do it better together.”
That involved merging two boards of directors into one, creating an entirely new
organizational chart, and defining the culture of the new museum. Kaleideum employs 53 part- and full-time employees year-round, a number that jumps to 75 during its busiest summer months.
“That is often the challenge with these kinds of mergers: to bring together two staffs and two boards where there had been competing interests,” explains Kortenaar, who recently moved to Texas to take on his next professional challenge as leader of a new children’s museum in El Paso.
“Everybody had their own ways of doing things. Initially there was a feeling that if we
were collaborating, we were changing. But, in fact, it was the collaboration that made the organization stronger.”
Kaleideum received a Community Grant from the Foundation for expenses related
to the merger, including a new IT system to consolidate membership, donor admission, programming, registration, and management functions.
These days Dampier is the sole executive director of Kaleideum. She recently oversaw the completion of a new strategic plan for the museum, which will move from its two existing locations into a new building on county-owned land downtown at Third Street and Town Run Lane, near Merschel Plaza. “Forsyth County is building the new museum and has committed to maintaining it. Our responsibility is to fill it up with all the fun stuff,” Dampier says. “We have an architect and an exhibit design firm on board, and we will conduct a $10 million capital campaign in 2018.”
It’s not surprising that Dampier is thinking big about the future—it’s another of those
qualities she likes to see in the kids who walk through the doors.
“We have been given a wonderful gift from the county, and we are committed to building an engaging place where all children and members of our community feel welcome and inspired to learn, create, and develop skills so instrumental for future success.”