Here's a NYT article on some museum budgets from 2014: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/arts/artsspecial/start-up-success-isnt-enough-to-found-a-museum.html h

Here's a NYT article on some museum budgets from 2014: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/arts/artsspecial/start-up-success-isnt-enough-to-found-a-museum.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/arts/artsspecial/start-up... From the article, it looks like you could do it on ~10mm + ~6mm endowment for a small museum. For a university department, Duke has some good numbers: https://giving.duke.edu/ways-to-give/endowment/endowment-giving/ https://giving.duke.edu/ways-to-give/endowment/endowment-giv... Assuming three full professors and three assistant professors, plus some extra for the chair and one visiting professor, I'd estimate a 16mm endowment would run a department quite nicely for a while.