We’re raising $500,000 to help make our new space fantastic, and to make the MADE a solid institution, with a foundation of capital that can last it over the long haul.

The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE) was the world’s first all-playable video game museum in 2011. Today, it’s the Bay Area’s only video game museum, and a beloved Oakland institution formed with equipment and furniture donated by locals and travelers. With free classes for kids, field trips for local schools, and cutting edge preservation efforts, the MADE has hosted over 78,000 visitors, admissions, and students from all over the world since we started tracking attendance in 2016.

We could talk all day about what we’ve done, but here are some highlights:

2,783 counted students educated across technology, programming, and art classes over 15 years
- Backprojections estimate 5,000 total students taught
- Representative of Oakland ethnic population
- Every class taught at the MADE has been offered at zero cost
Assisted in the first preservation of an MMORPG through a collaboration with Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer
Changed copyright law to open the door for the playable preservation of interactive media
Coordinated a handful of local children to build a virtual version of Oakland to be exhibited at the OMCA
Collaborated with dozens of institutions across legal, educational, technology, and museum-related efforts
Released video content on YouTube that has collectively gathered close to 200,000 views

The MADE Needs You!

To keep doing what we’re doing, we must develop the stability to produce the financial systems and the codification of culture that will allow the MADE to stand for the next hundred years. It can no longer rely upon the willpower of a few immensely dedicated individuals orchestrating a sea of volunteers that move in and out of its proximity.

This past year has been our first foray into a future of stability for the MADE, and we’re confident that we can continue to grow upon this. To do so, we are focusing on the following: Educational categorization of programming, systemization through one product line, growth of full-time staff, and evangelization of our playable preservation education methodology.

In other words:

Educational categorization: All our programming has an educational purpose
Systemization through one product line: Use field trips to increase system development efficiency
Grow full-time staff: Hire and develop full-time staff to reduce leadership demands on volunteers
Evangelization of education methodology: Share our learnings with others so that playable preservation can grow everywhere

If you’d like to read more, feel free to jump to our longer article on this here: https://www.themade.org/support-the-made

Sponsorship

Are you representing a company? We would love to chat with you about how we could recognize you for your contribution to the future of Oakland's youth and video game history itself! Please shoot us an email at info@themade.org, and we can chat to you further about sponsorship levels in the heart of Oakland, CA.

Graphs

Still not convinced? We’ve got graphs and testimonials for you!

Education

The Saturday morning classes at The MADE have been a great way for my son to learn about how video games are made in a fun and creative environment. He was especially excited to use what he learned in class to make his own stop-motion animation movie with his Legos. He also loves creating worlds and characters. It’s been amazing to see him so engaged and eager to experiment with new ideas!

- Bridget Jordan, Parent

We’ve been educating students every year since we opened in 2011. Here’s what we’ve counted.

Children love our classes! 1 out of 2 students will give up their Saturday mornings to attend 2 or more classes a year, and 1 out of 3 students will do this 3 or more times!

From self-reported data, we find the ethnic distribution of our attendees to be representative of the city of Oakland. Our classes reach across demographic divides!

Community

After some interviews, I managed to get an offer for this summer. Funny enough, during one of the interview phases, I talked about my time at the MADE and it turned out the interviewer was not only familiar with the MADE but actually a big fan. I feel like that gave me a bit of an edge in the interview process, so thanks again for introducing me to the MADE. I'm still in the process of another internship interview, but we'll see how that goes.

- Scott Le, College Student

Since we started counting, we’re close to 700 indie game developers who have used our space to connect with their peers. This year alone, we’re on track to connect 500 of them!

The MADE has had a lot of volunteers over the years! We’ve started capturing total attendance–we’re on track to exceed last year’s volunteer count and continue to grow.

Costs

As you can see, our current operating budget is incredibly lean. While we love our volunteers, we need to grow our full-time staff to handle the majority of the orchestration of our efforts.

Income

Unlike most museums (and non-profits), almost all of our revenue is operational.

More specifically, our revenue last year was around 2/3rds operational.

Conclusion

Thank you for letting us tell you our story! We know right now is a trying time for many individuals and for many institutions. If you can’t support, we understand!

However, we ask that you share our story with your networks! We know there are a lot of folks who care about what the MADE does and want to see more institutions like this all around the world! The more support we get, the more we can share our learnings, our volunteers, and our joy in this monumental effort to pass our digital heritage on to the next generation of digital creators.

Last year, we worked with architects at HKIT to envision a future rearchitecture of the space inside the MADE. While the funding from the state was cancelled, we are still holding on to this vision! We hope it will inspire you to imagine what the MADE can become with the entire community’s support.

Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment

Inspire the next generation of creators!