Some Frequently Asked Questions

Currently, there is no physical museum location. We are actively searching for a suitable venue and will announce updates here as soon as they become available. In the meantime, we’re expanding our website to offer a Virtual Museum experience. Soon, you’ll be able to explore many of our artifacts and access additional history about the San Diego Sheriff’s Office online.

Yes, donations to the San Diego Sheriff’s Museum are tax-deductible. We are a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization, so your contributions are eligible for deduction under IRS regulations. If you have specific tax questions, please consult with a tax professional.

You can make a donation online by clicking the “Donate” button on the main banner. If you prefer to donate by check, please mail your donation to:

San Diego Sheriff’s Museum
P.O. Box 1004
Lakeside, CA 92040

Please make checks payable to “San Diego Sheriff’s Museum.”

We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization reliant on tax-deductible philanthropic contributions from the public.

In these early stages of the organization’s history, the Museum is being largely funded by the members of the Museum’s Board of Directors.

Starting in 2024, we also began receiving individual donations from Retired Deputies and others. In February 2025, the Deputy Sheriff’s Association began contributing monthly donations via Retired Deputies who opt to donate through deductions from their retirement checks.

The Museum is independent of the San Diego Sheriff’s Office and receives no funding from SDSO.

All monies spent by the organization are strictly to establish a new San Diego Sheriff’s Museum and to position ourselves to establish a physical museum as soon as possible. To that end, we have engaged a nonprofit/museum consultant who is assisting us in stewarding our growth as an organization and helping with plans for a future facility. Our consultant is charging us a discounted rate (and performing some services pro-bono).

We also retained a website designer to develop a complete branding for the Museum and to create a website, essential for elevating the profile of the organization and attracting support for our efforts. The branding and website budget is $14,000, of which approximately 75% has been completed.

Further, the organization incurs annual website operation and maintenance costs, rental costs for climate-controlled storage for Museum artifacts, and licensing fees for software necessary for Museum-related functions, such as donor/member management and cataloging objects in the Museum’s collection for future display – expenses not only common but essential for any museum to operate responsibly and professionally.

Finally, all members of the Board are volunteers and receive no compensation for their service.

The William B. Kolender Sheriff’s Museum was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The building’s owner decided to permanently close the museum and sell the property, which had significantly appreciated in value. Unfortunately, the current asking price for the building is beyond our financial resources.

The firearms from the old museum are being held in secure storage.
We have an inventory list of about 125 key Sheriff’s items (non-firearm) that are currently held in various Sheriff’s stations.
Most non-Sheriff’s items from the old museum were placed into two POD containers currently residing in the Sheriff’s Ridgehaven headquarters parking structure.
We have leased climate-controlled storage and are engaged in retrieving, cataloguing, and moving the artifacts from the POD containers to the controlled storage while we are searching for a physical museum.

Over the years, the office has been referred to as both the San Diego Sheriff’s Office and the San Diego Sheriff’s Department. As of June 10, 2024, the official name is the “San Diego Sheriff’s Office.”

We are always looking for volunteers! Please visit our “Get Involved” page to learn more. Whether you’re a historian, researcher, intern, or interested in becoming a docent once we reopen, we would love to have you join us.

We welcome any corrections to our website content. Please email us at info@SanDiegoSheriffsMuseum.org, including the specific webpage, the incorrect information, and the correct details. If you have supporting references, such as newspaper articles or other media, please include those as well.

If you have items you’d like to donate, please email us at info@SanDiegoSheriffsMuseum.org with your contact information (name, email, and phone number) and a brief description of the item(s). One of our staff members will follow up with you for more details.

While the old museum was managed as one of many programs under HDSA, with museum operations administered by a committee and financials effectively co-mingled with all other HDSA income and expenses, the new Sheriff’s Museum is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit that exists solely to operate a museum. The Board of Directors of the new Sheriff’s Museum closely monitors all organization financials. The Board is responsible for developing the budget, reviewing financial reports on a monthly basis, and makes tactical and strategic decisions, as warranted. In addition to timely public filings with the Federal and State Governments, the new Sheriff’s Museum we will share our detailed financials with anyone upon request.

When HDSA shuttered the original museum, most of the contents were placed in temporary storage until a new museum was to be created.  Unfortunately, reliable records of loaned or donated objects had not been maintained by stewards of the original museum. Representatives of the new Sheriff’s Museum are not currently able to determine what may have been the fate of every object, nor the custodial history of the objects that are known to be in storage. However, provenance (the history of every object, from its origins to its current state) are priorities of the new Sheriff’s Museum, and we are documenting all information about every donated and/or loaned object going forward. The new Sheriff’s Museum is committed to best practices in museum management, with a key strategic objective being to eventually secure accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). Rigorous stewardship of all resources held at and by the new San Diego Sheriff’s Museum is an expressed ethos of the Board of Directors, and this Board takes its responsibility to the community seriously.