The Museum of the Earth in Ithaca has narrowly avoided foreclosure after raising millions in donations.
The museum had until New Year's Eve to pay off its $3 million mortgage debt. Financial woes have plagued the museum in recent years after a long-time donor was unable to fulfill a $30 million promised gift to the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI).
Warren Allmon, PRI’s director, said the mortgage was paid because donors, big and small, stepped in with their contributions.
“It came from absolutely everywhere. It came from these million dollar donors. It came from people who wrote us $5 checks. Most movingly, it came from two eight year olds,” Allmon said.
Over 2,000 people donated to PRI in 2025, Allmon said.
The Museum of the Earth is home to one of the largest fossil collections in the country.
Until the mortgage was paid, the fate of that collection was in jeopardy. Allmon said the museum would have been forced to split up the fossils and send them away.
“We quickly figured out that no one institution could take the PRI collection. It's too big,” Allmon said.
He said collections like the Museum of the Earth’s enable what he sees as one of humanity’s finer qualities: our understanding of the natural world.
“You can't understand the natural world without natural history collections. You just can't,” he said. “You can't answer questions. You can't document things. You can't know what you know. You can't voucher knowledge that's already out there without specimens to base it on. ”
Although the mortgage debt payment means the collection will stay in one piece, it is not the end of the museum’s money troubles.
Allmon said the organization is still navigating the financial strain of the lost $30 million pledge. PRI has already laid off half of its staff and closed the Cayuga Nature Center to the public. He said the Museum of the Earth is being challenged by aging facilities, fossil storage, and trying to care for its remaining staff.
“Our staff are overworked and underpaid, so the cliche goes, and we need to take care of them.”
Allmon added that he is also worried about possible federal funding cuts to the Museum of the Earth and other natural history museums.
