The National Museum of Nature and Science said Monday that it has raised ¥920 million ($6.15 million) through a 90-day crowdfunding campaign, with 57,000 members of the public chipping in to help maintain the institution's collections and cover its soaring utility costs.
The amount of donations and the number of people who contributed are the largest ever for any single crowdfunding campaign in Japan, according to Readyfor, a crowdfunding platform involved in the campaign.
As soon as the museum, popularly known as Kahaku, started crowdfunding on Aug. 7, it was inundated with donation offers and its website became temporarily inaccessible due to the massive amount of traffic. It achieved the original target of ¥100 million within nine hours of the campaign's start.