With little to show but enthusiasm, the development staff at the National Constitution Center managed to fund a dream.

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

“There were some wonderful early believers, some very early friends,” Seiter says, expressing amazement that so many of those huge early gifts were unrestricted.

“It was just like, ‘Here, go build your dream,’” she says. “If they needed the money for construction, it went there. If they needed it for the endowment, it went there. [Now] it’s harder to get people to give unrestricted gifts. They’re more project and program oriented.”