Representing a unique private/public partnership, the museum is privately funded by donors and members while operating in a building owned by the County of Peoria.

It is also known for its 40 ft (12 m) Digistar 7 dome planetarium and a film society using a 70 ft (21 m) Giant Screen Theater, the largest known film society screen in the U.S. Exhibition partners include philanthropist Alice Walton's Art Bridges Foundation, the Smithsonian, with a strategic partnership with many leading cultural organizations in New York including the American Museum of Natural History, and the Whitney Museum of American Art the American Folk Art Museum, (MoMA), and others.

), ethnographic art (Native American, African, Oceanic, Asian), natural science artifacts (rocks and minerals, insects, shells), and historic artifacts including a Duryea Motor Wagon Company car, theater and opera posters, and square dancing items.

The world's third largest scale model of the solar system is centered on the museum, which has a 46 feet (14 m) diameter representation of the Sun.

The operations are supported by donations and earned revenue while the building and grounds are owned by Peoria County and leased to the museum by public-private partnership agreement.