Ventriloquism Institute

Support

Where the money goes

Two routes, each funding something specific. We would rather tell you exactly what a gift does than ask you to trust that it does something.

Sponsor a literacy program

Puts a live program into a school or library and a book into the hands of every child who attends. The program →

General support

Keeps the archive free and public, and funds the work of finding, scanning and sourcing material before it is lost. The archive →

Give something that is not money

⭐ The thing the Institute most needs cannot be bought. Every year, material that exists in one copy goes into a skip because the family clearing the house did not know what they were looking at.

If you have any of this, we want to hear from you — and we will pay the postage:

  • Programmes and playbills from any convention, variety bill, club night or school show that had a ventriloquist on it
  • Photographs — performers, figures, workshops, backstage. Especially anything with a name written on the back
  • Correspondence between performers, or with figure makers. Letters about an order or a repair are often the only record a workshop ever kept
  • Trade magazines and club newsletters — The Oracle, Vent-O-Gram, Grapevine News, Dialogue, The Barker, and the dozens of local bulletins nobody indexed
  • Catalogues and price lists from figure makers and magic dealers
  • Recordings — audio or video, of anything, in any format including ones you can no longer play
  • A figure with a story, or just what you remember about one you no longer have

You do not have to give the object away. A scan is worth almost as much as the original, and we would rather photograph something on your kitchen table than see it lost. Everything contributed is credited unless you ask us not to.

By check

Make checks payable to Ventriloquism Institute, Inc. — the full legal name, including the comma and Inc.

Tax status

Ventriloquism Institute, Inc. is a Florida not-for-profit corporation and a 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 46‑5471215, with a ruling date of August 2014. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. No goods or services are provided in exchange for a contribution unless stated at the time of the gift.

Get in touch

For grants, sponsorship, donations of material to the archive, or questions about governance, write to [email protected].