Embedded in the fabric of our community
The WA Museum strives towards being at the heart of our community. Why? Because an informed and engaged community can work together for a better future.
The WA Museum creates a sense of belonging, gives our community members a voice, and creates emotional connections. The Museum is a place for learning and shared experiences, and a space of shared origins and history.
At the same time, the WA Museum can only thrive with the support of its community – you! If we want the WA Museum to thrive in the future, it needs to be well cared for today.
Keeping, telling and sharing the community’s stories
The WA Museum is a place where a diverse range of community voices from the past and the present are being heard.
The WA Museum not only collects, preserves and cares for objects and information which give shape to stories of our community, but also enables the WA community itself to be part of how their stories are being told and shared.
Community input from across the State was central to the exhibit design for the WA Museum Boola Bardip with over 50,000 people contributing to the new museum development. Collaboration and co-curation with a broad range of community partners continues to form an important part of the Museum’s program of exhibitions, events, performances and lectures. At all times, the Museum aims to provide a safe place for important, and maybe challenging, conversations.
WA Museum's Assistant Curator History, Joshua Kalmund, interviewing Peter Durrant.
Today’s community stories are tomorrow’s history
The Nothing but Memories project is a large contemporary collecting project and part of a larger targeted collecting strategy that looks at natural disasters in Western Australia between 2006 to 2021. The project explored the experiences of Western Australian individuals and communities impacted by the Wooroloo bushfire and Tropical Cyclone Seroja, and gave communities a platform to record their own stories.
In total, 13 long form interviews and 30 video journals were recorded and then transcribed, two items were added to the WA Museum collection, and two showreel videos featuring clips from all interviews were created.
Educating future generations
If you grew up in WA, you probably visited a WA Museum site on a school excursion.
Many people still recall the awe and wonder they experienced in the Museum as a child. Now, the next generations of children and grandchildren visit the Museum on school excursions and family outings.
The Museum offers comprehensive educational programming for students from Kindergarten to Year 12, professional development programs for teachers, a variety of school holiday activities and workshops, and year-round early-learning activities. The program is focussed on STEM subjects, knowledge of the environment and environmentally sustainable practices, as well as innovation, social history, archaeology and the knowledge of WA’s First Peoples.
- 49,824 students
- 8,940 teachers
- 1,009 participants to professional development workshops
- 92 participants to virtual labs
Part of the social fabric of our community
The WA Museum is a top tourist attraction – and so much more.
The WA Museum’s iconic buildings are stand-out tourism destinations, welcoming many visitors from intrastate, interstate and overseas, and stimulating economic activity in the surrounding areas.
At the same time, the WA Museum is part of the fabric of the Western Australian community, weaving and strengthening many different threads which link the Museum to other organisations, community groups, families and individuals.
Especially in regional centres, the WA Museums sites are more than just buildings and exhibition galleries. They are active community participants, meeting places, places for celebrations, and places that inspire an intense sense of community ownership, belonging and pride.
Must-See Destinations
- 3,772,204 people engaged with WA Museum content and collections
- 1,251,422 visitors to WA Museum sites, off-site and outreach programs, including over 400,000 to WA Museum Boola Bardip
- Interstate visits 23%
- Overseas visits 19%
- 97% overall visitor satisfaction
- WA Museum Boola Bardip estimated to have contributed almost $50 million to the State’s economy
- Boola Bardip was awarded 2024 WA Major Tourist Attraction
Working for the benefit of all Western Australians
The WA Museum works across the State for the benefit of all Western Australians.
From collaborations with the international scientific community, offshore ocean expeditions, fieldwork across the breadth and length of our State, to outreach activities, lectures, presentations and workshop – the WA Museum’s reach goes far beyond the walls of its public museum buildings.
You can keep the Museum’s heart beating strong!
Since 1995, the Foundation for the WA Museum has been supporting the WA Museum.
All gifts to the Foundation flow into the Discovery Endowment Fund, a responsibly managed charitable investment portfolio. Through the Discovery Endowment Fund, donations to the Foundation for the WA Museum are invested in perpetuity and achieve compound growth. The fund will grow over time to keep pace with rising costs and needs. This robust fund is the source of annual grants to the WA Museum, supporting high impact initiatives now and in future years.
The Foundation’s grants allow the WA Museum to bring major strategic initiatives to fruition, which would not be possible otherwise, and reach beyond core business activities covered by State government funding. The WA Museum is counting on the Foundation’s grant funding.
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Acquisition of the Red Rock Art Collection and Archive
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Kalyenup 2026 exhibition and artwork commissioning
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Legacy Collection digitisation
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Fieldtrips to the Giralia Anticline in the search of Cretaceous marine vertebrates
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Nullarbor Plain arachnid and fossil collection fieldtrip
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Women’s sport collection pilot
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Nothing But Memories collecting project
By harnessing corporate and private philanthropic gifts, the Foundation helps ensure that the WA Museum can continue to lead the way and collect and share stories, educate future generations, and be at the heart of the WA community.
To achieve this, we need to grow the Discovery Endowment Fund as quickly as possible.
Show your support for the WA Museum today, and help it thrive
With your donation, you can help ensure that the WA Museum’s work in the community continues year after year.
