The Museum of the Peace Corps Experience envisions connecting people around the world to inspire service and peace, showing that our common humanity is more fundamental than the cultures and ideas that separate us.

The Museum of the Peace Corps Experience collects and preserves stories and objects of material culture donated by volunteers who serve in communities around the globe. It fosters cultural understanding through education and promotes research on the impact of Peace Corps, encouraging visitors to serve—wherever they live, however they can.

In 1999 a group of returned Peace Corps Volunteers in Portland, Oregon, established the Committee for a Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. The group managed acquisition of objects, organized professionally curated exhibitions, and pursued funding sources.

The Portland committee expanded its membership and vision to the national level in 2016. Representatives from around the country met prior to the Peace Corps Connect 55th anniversary conference in Washington, DC, to strategize how to launch a national collaboration. The following year, the committee gathered for its first in-person planning retreat in Denver, in conjunction with the 2017 Peace Corps Connect.

The group formulated four strategic initiatives: operations, collections, fundraising, and technology. Goals focused on expanding the Museum’s operation and visibility, including logo and website design, accessioning and storing collections, launching of virtual exhibits, reestablishing a board of directors, securing paid staff, and identifying a site for the physical museum.

The Committee supports the three goals of Peace Corps:

1. Help the people of interested countries meet their need for trained men and women.
2. Help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.