Melissa Santee, Chief Philanthropy Officer, Cleveland Museum of Natural History (Cleveland, U.S.A.)

Melissa Santee is Chief Philanthropy Officer at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where she leads philanthropy, marketing, and communications as a unified strategy. She directed the Museum's largest-ever capital campaign, raising $156M against a $150M goal, and has secured or overseen more than $200M in cumulative philanthropic investment over a 20+ year career spanning higher education, cultural, and independent-school institutions, including Case Western Reserve University and the Palm Beach County Cultural Council. She has been recognized as a Woman of Professional Excellence by the YWCA (2026), a Woman of Influence by Crain's (2025), and among Smart Women, Smart Business honorees (2024).

The Business of Wonder: How Philanthropy Builds Museum Trust

When COVID accelerated the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's building transformation by two years, the result was an award-winning space that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually — but the wonder on display only exists because of continued, deliberate investment. This session argues that philanthropy is not just what funds imagination; it's what earns institutional trust.

Drawing on the Museum's current $50M "In Service to Science" campaign and the realities of fundraising in a mid-tier market with seven competing capital campaigns within two miles, the presentation unpacks four ways philanthropy fuels imagination: expanding access, supporting community-centered programming, positioning museums as civic anchors, and strengthening long-term institutional sustainability.

At the center is the concept of "relevance capital" — the credibility an institution earns when its fundraising and community engagement genuinely align with mission, rather than merely performing it. In a moment when funders and audiences can increasingly tell authentic mission alignment from performative gestures, this session offers museum and arts leaders a framework for making the case that funding isn't a budget line — it's an investment in imagination itself. Attendees will leave with language and examples to reframe donor conversations, and a challenge: to examine where their own institution's funding truly aligns with mission, and where it doesn't yet.