Thank you, Mr. Amos, for that excellent question.
Of course, COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the museum, which was closed to the public for most of 2020. In addition to the subsidy we receive from the government, the majority of our revenue comes from visits to the museum, and we've seen that revenue drop by 96%. Seeing no improvement in the coming year, we had to apply to the government for funding to offset the loss of revenue that we would most likely experience. We were granted this funding, and I believe it is in the neighbourhood of $4.9 million. That allows us to continue with the programming and activities that we had planned. However, I should point out that the Canadian War Museum and the Canadian Museum of History are a corporation, and they share the $4.9 million. I should add that the distribution of the money hasn't yet been determined.
We've learned a lot in the past year. Like all cultural organizations, we've had to move to digital platforms. We had already planned to do that, but the current situation has accelerated that shift. By necessity, our planning was often focused on people coming into the museum, physically coming to the site. Now our school and public programs and exhibits are tailored to digital platforms. It's really allowed us to be more consistent with our mandate, which is national. It has allowed us to reach Canadian audiences, and even an audience beyond our borders. We've seen very good results. Our social media presence has increased by 17% in the last year, which is great. It has allowed us to encourage discussion with the Canadian public, which is a very diverse audience.
In terms of the programs we have developed, it has also allowed us to approach military history in a much more modern and current way. For example, the boxes of artifacts that we send free of charge to schools across Canada are accompanied by teaching materials that teachers can use in the classroom. What we found was that more and more, this was generating dialogue with students who were new to Canada, first talking about Canadian military history, and then very spontaneously students from a variety of backgrounds, often from countries that were experiencing conflict, talking about their own experiences. That really allowed us, over the last year, to broaden and reach out to many more Canadians with military history.
There is also the commemoration aspect, of course. With the money that we were very fortunate to receive in the federal budget, we can continue to deliver our programs and expand them in preparation for the very likely renewal of the Canadian War Museum in the years to come.