As its operational nonprofit struggles to find new funding sources, Fayetteville’s U.S. Airborne & Special Operations Museum may be unable to sustain its current offerings to both the community and the thousands of visitors who come to Fayetteville each year to see it.
ASOM, located next to Segra Stadium in the center of downtown Fayetteville, is the first U.S. Army Museum built outside the perimeter of an Army installation. It is consistently ranked among the top museums in the state and is often considered Fayetteville’s number one tourist attraction. Admission is free.
Many of the programs that enhance the museum’s experience and ties to the community are provided by the Airborne & Special Operations Museum Foundation, its Executive Director Renee Lane told CityView. While the Army’s staff handles the core functions, or the “meat and potatoes,” of the museum — like managing the exhibits and collections and securing artifacts — the ASOM Foundation supports the museum by hosting events, planning educational programs, managing its website and promoting ASOM on social media, Lane said.
The museum was originally owned by the foundation, but the foundation gifted it to the Army in 2005 “to better manage and grow the collection and maintain exhibits,” according to the foundation’s July newsletter.
The foundation’s operating budget for this fiscal year is expected to be around $1 million, Lane said, though this could change as the budgeting process progresses. The nonprofit faces additional challenges as it looks to cover a nearly $200,000 shortfall that arose when the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners in June denied funding the foundation previously used to cover outstanding operating expenses.
The board’s decision to cut off the ASOM Foundation’s perennial funding in the county’s fiscal year budget was not an isolated decision. The county denied funding for several other nonprofits that had previously received the government grants — and now have to scramble to make up for the unanticipated loss of funds.
Funding problems
The ASOM Foundation raises funds for the museum to bring in new and special exhibits, as well as gallery renovations and other projects that enhance visitors’ experiences of the museum, Lane said. It also operates the museum’s gift shop and maintains outdoor grounds, including the landscape, monuments, statues, pavers, and puts on the annual “Field of Honor” display.
Lane said this year’s operating deficit has been caused partially by two of the museum’s major attractions and the foundation’s revenue streams being out of service: the Pritzker Motion Simulator and the museum theater. The 244-seat theater closed after a car ran off the road and crashed into the ASOM in February 2023, killing the driver and setting off the museum’s sprinkler system.
The simulator closed in November 2023 because its electronics aged out, Lane said, describing the loss of revenue as a “huge hit to our bottom line.”
Fixing the ride is not an option at this point, Lane said, given the cost and technological know-how that would be required.
“It’s beyond anybody’s expertise here, so we kind of have to close the door on that and look to the future for a new experience,” Lane told CityView.
The Army is assessing the theater’s repair needs, Fort Liberty spokesperson Cheryle Rivas told CityView.
The ASOM Foundation receives the majority of its funding through non-government grants and individual contributions and donations. But much of the money the foundation receives from grants or fundraising is restricted to specific projects, Lane said, and cannot be used to fund salaries or other recurring expenses in the operating budget.
What happened this budget cycle
This year, the county denied the foundation’s initial request of $200,000, submitted in early 2024 during the annual 2024-25 budget request for outside agencies. Lane said she discovered the request had been denied when County Manager Clarence Grier presented the county’s recommended budget to the commissioners on May 23.
The new vote came during the meeting following the budget hearing on June 5, after Commissioner Jimmy Keefe made a motion to provide $60,000 to the foundation, instead of zero. The recommended budget allocated “no new funding” to the ASOM Foundation and two other agencies, citing budget constraints.
The board of commissioners voted 5-2 against Keefe’s motion, with Keefe and Commissioner Michael Boose casting the votes in favor of the funding.
The county commissioners ultimately provided the foundation with $25,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds this year for science and technology educational programming, though this was awarded prior to the county’s budget approval.
Commissioners’ response
During the June 5 commissioners’ meeting, Adams argued denying funding for the foundation “doesn’t impact the museum” and the general fund money given to the foundation was not meant to continue “in perpetuity.”
“I want people to understand that this doesn’t impact the museum,” Adams said. “This is a foundation. This is not the museum. This money is not to keep the museum open. The museum is going to be open regardless, because the government pays to keep this museum open.”
There was some debate and confusion among county commissioners during the meeting about an internal rule they had made to not provide general funding to nonprofits who had already received ARPA funds.
In response to a CityView inquiry as to where the ARPA funding rule came from, county spokesperson Diane Rice said it had originated in a budget work session last year. At the time, Keefe raised concerns about nonprofits who had not applied to receive ARPA funds but had applied for general funds. Stewart then suggested that if nonprofits were getting funded through ARPA, they shouldn’t be eligible for general funds as well. There was no official motion made.
Regardless, the commissioners broke this internal rule when they provided the Child Advocacy Center with $1,000 in general fund money, despite also giving that organization ARPA money earlier this year. The other two nonprofits who had received ARPA money and requested general funds — the ASOM Foundation and the Partnership for Children of Cumberland County — did not receive any budget funding.
Lane said she received no indication on the ARPA grant or in communications with the county about this funding rule for the ASOM Foundation.
“There’s nothing that we have found in any of the information that was sent to us that if we applied for that county annual budget community funding grant, we wouldn’t be eligible for one or the other, because the ARPA really was specifically for COVID-19 relief,” Lane said. “It was not for annual programming, operational relief, that sort of thing.”
Lane said while the county’s funding denial was a setback, the foundation has other sources of funding it can draw from.
“The county has been very generous,” she told CityView. “We know that there are some restrictions on what they can do this year. If a grant program opens in the future, we’ll take a look at it. Will we need it? I don’t know. I don’t know what the future is going to look like. But, like I said, we have other sources of funding, and we don’t rely on them 100% for an award.”
The city of Fayetteville allocated $56,250 for the foundation, according to the fiscal year 2024-25 city budget. That amount is consistent with the past several years, budget records show.
Fayetteville’s budget also includes revenue the city attains from providing maintenance and custodial services at the museum for the Army.
Editor’s note: This article has been edited for space from the original. To read the article in full, visit https://bit.ly/3WtSK34.

(Photo: Photo courtesy of the Airborne and Special Operations Museum Foundation Facebook page)