Sponsorships & Donor Recognition

MIM offers a range of sponsorship opportunities that enable the museum to maintain the highest standards in our exhibits, concerts, educational offerings, and other programs. To find out how opportunities can be tailored to individual interests, contact MIM’s Development Team at 480.478.6031 or development@theMIM.org.

MIM Music Theater’s striking architecture spans two floors of the museum. Boasting 299 seats, this spectacular venue provides an intimate concert-going experience with spacious seating and state-of-the-art acoustics. In addition to featuring well-known performers and exciting new talents from around the world, MIM also offers films, lectures, and interactive performances that draw guests deeper into global musical traditions and trends.

Opportunities for sponsorship start at $2,500 and range from a single concert Supporting Sponsor to a season-long Signature Sponsor, with benefits that include:

• VIP reception and artist meet-and-greet
• Concert tickets
• Logo recognition in print ads, online, and onsite at MIM
• Sponsor acknowledgment from the stage
• Opportunity to be permanently recognized on the MIM Founders Wall*

School Group Tours are offered for grades 4–12, with programming that aligns with Arizona Academic Standards. This curriculum-based, docent-led tour provides an in-depth look at different exhibits, highlighting countries and musical cultures in all five of MIM’s major Geographical Galleries. Students are introduced to the variety and diversity of the world’s musical traditions, from an Indonesian gong workshop to a concert stage featuring Fender electric guitars. Students are invited to make observations, ask questions, and get to know and hear some of the vast array of musical instruments found at MIM. Content aligns with Arizona State Standards in science, social studies, and music education.

Included in the tour is a fun, directed, hands-on activity in the Experience Gallery Classroom, which allows students to play unique instruments and participate in physics experiments that explain the science of sound. Student activity books or other takeaways can be provided so students can continue learning at home or on a succeeding visit with their families via a coupon for a free youth admission. (School Group Tour sponsorships start at $2,500.)

The Artist Residency Program at MIM brings professional musicians from around the world to provide unique educational opportunities for elementary, middle-school, and high-school groups. A collaborative effort between the MIM Music Theater and the museum’s Education Department, this program hosts musicians representing the diversity of the world’s cultures. Artists-in-residence will perform in the state-of-the-art Music Theater and remain at MIM for two or three additional days after their concert performance to provide educational programs for schools and the public. Programs include school assemblies in the Music Theater, master classes, workshops, and lectures. (Artist Residency Program sponsorships start at $5,000.*)

Museum Encounters are thirty-minute musical demonstrations that feature musician-teaching artists in the museum galleries performing for and interacting with guests. The program is called Museum Encounters because it offers organic demonstrations to museum guests that are included with paid admission to the museum. These encounters help to bring MIM’s instruments to life. (Museum Encounters sponsorships start at $2,500.)

Country/Genre Exhibits: MIM’s vast instrument collection was assembled by five expert curators with the consultation of distinguished ethnomusicologists, organologists, and other field experts from around the world. The collection is highlighted in Geographical Galleries that focus on five global regions featuring about three hundred exhibits that showcase nearly five thousand instruments and music-related objects, providing numerous opportunities for donors to be recognized at country or musical-genre exhibits that meet their individual interests.

MIM’s Africa and Middle East collection displays musical instruments from forty-seven sub-Saharan and twenty-one North African and Middle Eastern nations. The Asia and Oceania collection has instruments from fifty countries and island groups in five subgalleries devoted to the regions of East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The Europe collection shows musical instruments from forty-seven countries, and the Latin America collection presents instruments and ensembles from forty nation-states and territories displayed in three subgalleries: South America, Central America and Mexico, and the Caribbean. In contrast to the other Geographical Galleries, exhibits in the United States/Canada gallery are organized by musical genre. Ranging from hip hop to Sousa bands, these displays explore traditional and popular sounds from the Arctic to the Mexican border. (Country/Genre Exhibit recognition opportunities start at $25,000; selected exhibit to be mutually agreed upon with MIM.*)

Special Exhibitions: The Target Gallery, located on the first floor of the museum, hosts special temporary exhibitions and touring shows such as American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music. Organized by the Experience Music Project in Seattle, American Sabor traces the Latin American influences in North American pop music. The exhibit was at MIM from November 2010 to May 2011. Several other exhibitions are scheduled to visit MIM in the coming seasons. The next one, called The Power of Music: Photographic Portraits of Americans and Their Musical Instruments, 1860-1915, opens on September 24 through November 20, 2011. (Special Exhibition sponsorship opportunities start at $15,000.)

*MIM gratefully recognizes as Founders all individuals, corporations, and foundations that give at the $5,000 level or above by December 31, 2011, with their names permanently engraved onto the MIM Founders Wall, which is prominently located near the MIM Music Theater.