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Encore Awards

Founded in 1899, the Brooklyn Children's Museum was the world's first museum for children, created as a place for youngsters to discover the wider wold around them through participation in hands-on programs and active exploration of arts, culture, and science exhibits.

Carol Enseki joined the Brooklyn Children's Museum in 1989, becoming president in 1997, and has worked with corporate, public, nonprofit, and neighborhood partners to transform the hidden jewel in Crown Heights into a wold-class institution with community roots. Preparing the museum for its second century, she launched initiatives to expand educational opportunities for urban children, encourage and support family involvement in children's learning, and raise nearly $80 million to create an expanded facility devoted to arts, culture, and science education. In September 2008, the new museum, designed by Rafael Viñoly, opened its doors and is now serving three times as many people, much to the delight of future artists and scientists.

The growth in the scope and range of the museum's work, and the corresponding amplification of its mission to serve children and families, are a direct result of Carol's vision, her passion for drawing divers constituencies together, and her skills in steering a complex nonprofit organization through an unprecedented period of doubling its size and educational services. With contagious enthusiasm and determination, she has lead the museum successfully through a number of organizational, social, and financial challenges, including board development, staff development, fundraising obstacles, community conflict, and times of economic uncertainty.

Carol has recruited, trained, facilitated, and motivated the work of many people including trustees, donors, members, staff, friends in corporation and foundation circles, elected officials, and community leaders. Her noteworthy strengths include an ability to make every person involved in the museum feel important, useful, and appreciated, allowing everyone to share in the satisfaction of the museum's success. Although many people and groups have worked together to revitalize the institution and prepare it for the future, it has been Carol at the center, identifying, acquiring, and managing the human and economic resources that have been needed.

While leading the complex fundraising, operational, and construction aspects of the museum's growth, Carol is also an inspiring change agent on a personal level and in the wider community—mentoring her staff into positions of leadership and visibility, both internally and on to new organizations; inspiring a consortium of national museum associates to address issues of diversity and leadership in the field; lobbying for increased government support of arts education; and serving on the boards of several arts organizations.