For almost twenty years the Drachen Foundation has worked to produce innovative, interesting, and broad-reaching projects for the kiteflying public and general public alike. In those years we have grown from a noted kite-material archive to a producer of exhibits, workshops, publications, and online information. We have amassed a sizable collection of contemporary “western-style” kites through in-kind donations from a number of sources. Additionally, we have worked to collect prime examples of ethnic kites when the opportunities arose. Together with the collection of Samuel Franklin Cody archive, that we purchased in 1996, we have become one of the world’s largest repositories of kite-related information and artifacts in the world.

With today’s rapidly improving technology, we are about to embark on an exciting new phase of our history. We are becoming the largest online resource of kite information in the world. This includes digital records of all of our collections and our paper archives. We continue to add to that collection, daily, and currently have almost 3,000 digital records accessible to anyone with an internet connection. We are actively encouraging people to add their own information to the site so that we may continue to grow both the informational database and the virtual kite collection.

As the Foundation makes this exciting step into the future, we will have fewer demands for staff, less necessity for office space, lower storage costs and fewer hands-on exhibits and projects. We will, however, have ongoing costs to maintain the website, ensure timely tech support and pay for our online presence. Financial support for these activities will be raised by a variety of methods: sale of parts of the kite collection, sale of archival material, solicited donations, and endowments.

Thank you for the support you have shown over the last two decades. I hope you will join with us in 2013 as we celebrate our 20th Anniversary and this new phase for the Drachen Foundation.

Scott Skinner

Founder and President of the Board

Drachen Foundation