Our Mission & Vision
Our Mission
We create compelling experiences that open hearts, shift perspectives, and inspire compassionate action.
Our Vision
We envision a world where people connect with the wisdom, strength, and courage within their hearts to create a more compassionate society.
We believe that compassion is essential for human flourishing. It fosters healing, emotional well-being, and a sense of belonging. By creating spaces for reflection, dialogue, and action, we work to make compassion an active force for positive change in daily life.
"Think globally, act locally." — His Holiness the Dalai Lama
While our work is rooted in the Twin Cities, we are committed to collaborative networks and toolkits that will allow Compassion Museums to take root in communities around the world.
Our Story
At The Compassion Museum, we create immersive, hands-on experiences that inspire reflection, deepen understanding, and encourage compassionate action. Through art, storytelling, and interactive installations, we invite people to explore what it truly means to live with empathy and care—for themselves, for others, and for the world.
We are an educational nonprofit start-up dedicated to making compassion a practical, everyday reality. We partner with local organizations to bring innovative exhibits and transformative programs to communities across the Twin Cities, helping people strengthen emotional well-being, build meaningful relationships, and engage in the work of creating a more just and compassionate world.
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Compassion is a powerful transformer of grief, fear, anger, isolation, and division. It’s also what motivates us to go beyond ourselves to help others. But practicing it—especially toward those we struggle with, or even toward ourselves—can be challenging, to say the least.
That’s why The Compassion Museum began with a question.
“How can we make compassion easier? How can we embrace compassion in daily life—not just in times of crisis or profound suffering?”
To explore this the founder and her husband hosted several dialogues at their house, inviting people to explore compassion: what it means, why it matters, its role in our society, biology and health and well-being; why we resist it and when we need it most. As people shared their stories, one thing became clear: In this highly digitized, “plugged-in” world, we are facing a deep crisis of connection, and compassion not only helps transform suffering, it bring can us together in real and authentic ways.
These conversations sparked ideas about what a “Compassion Museum” could be and the kinds of things people wanted to experience. We then worked with a local artist to test some ideas in simple ways, allowing us to dialogue with and learn from the community as well as engage with content experts across different fields, from museology to health sciences.
On October 8, 2021, The Compassion Museum launched as a museum without walls—a mobile, interactive initiative dedicated to cultivating compassion through experiential learning, art, dialogue, and shared experiences.
With the help of many passionate individuals and community members, we’ve grown our reach and offerings. We invite you to see what we’ve built together!