The New Children’s Museum (NCM) is a new model of children’s museum whose mission is to stimulate imagination, creativity, and critical thinking in children and families through inventive and engaging experiences with contemporary art. The doors of its wholly owned, 55,000 square-foot downtown building opened in 2008, but families have made life-long memories at NCM since 1983. It is a community resource serving all of San Diego, a “backyard” for downtown families, and a safe, engaging space for all kinds of families. NCM impacts the economy by providing work for local artists and a destination for tourist families.

NCM’s vision is to address a critical need in our society and become a leader in engaging children to help them develop 21st century skills. Its on-site and virtual activities leverage research about brain development, play, and the arts.

NCM served 320,000 visitors in 2019, closed for most of 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic mandates, implemented strict cost controls (including to furlough/layoff 75% of staff), instead providing robust virtual programming to community partners and their families with age-appropriate prompts and activities, many thousands of Art/Learning Kits (A/L Kits)). NCM safely reopened May 2021, and added outdoor spaces. NCM welcomed 114,000 visitors including 21,000 A/L Kits.

In 2022, 225,000 visitors will make lifelong memories as they “think, play, and create” together. Widespread community access is a cornerstone of NCM’s philosophy, and it provides free/discounted entry to thousands of visitors each year (including more than 60,000 (25-30%) in 2022). (See also the next question.)

NCM doesn’t collect visitor demographics; it strives to make everyone feel welcome and reflect the City’s ethnic diversity which is 42% White and 58% People of Color (POC), specifically Hispanic/Latinx (30%), Asian (16%), Black (6%), Bi-racial (5%), and indigenous/other (1%) (per U.S. Census Quickfacts-2021 estimates accessed 1/30/22).