The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a private, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to saving historic places and revitalizing America's communities. Having been chartered by Congress in 1949, the trust became known for its ownership and operation of historic properties and its annual list of America's Most Endangered Historic Places. It also provided educational programs, issued grants to support local preservation projects, and joined court cases in support of preservation laws and causes. In 1982, it filed its first case as a plaintiff—against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And, in 1994, it became the leader in the successful effort to prevent development of a Walt Disney theme park near the Manassas National Battlefield Park, in Virginia, which pitted the trust against powerful business interests.

The trust had continued to receive an annual unrestricted appropriation from Congress since its founding, and by 1995, government funds accounted for $7 million of its $35-million total budget. The balance came from private sources, including income from a modest endowment of about $33 million (Adelman, 2005;

Kennicott, 2009). But the trust's efforts were often controversial with members of Congress, and the annual appropriation process required the trust to lobby vigorously on its own behalf to maintain government support. The 1995 budget cycle was especially bruising. While the trust ultimately received its full appropriation, it was a close call, with one congressional committee voting to cut it in half (Adelman, 2005). Richard Moe, who had been appointed president of the trust in 1993, reached a decision. “We decided [that] persuading Congress is [too] consuming an effort—and chancy,” Moe recalls. “Rather than be full-time lobbyists [on our own behalf], we wanted to lobby for others—for the National Park Service, tax credits, preservation policies. We wanted to be in control of our own destiny” (Adelman, 2005).

Congress agreed to guarantee limited support for a three-year transition, and the trust committed to going without unrestricted federal appropriations thereafter. The pressure was on.

The trust reduced staff, cut some programs, launched a strategic planning effort, and started a capital campaign. It developed new revenue streams through partnerships with corporations and entrepreneurial programs, such as Historic Hotels of America, which provides the trust with a fee from reservations placed through it with qualified hotels nationwide. It also initiated new donor programs, including organized trips to historic landmarks for major individual benefactors and intensified foundation fundraising (National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2008).

Freedom from federal support and a more diverse structure of revenue enabled the National Trust to pursue a more expansive agenda and increase its effectiveness as an advocate for historic preservation. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the trust worked to protect 37,000 historic structures in New Orleans. It opened a New Orleans office, completed demonstration projects, and lobbied Congress for $40 billion in grants to be funded through state preservation officers to help people rehabilitate their homes. And it fought the U.S. government in court to prevent federal funds from being used for demolition of substantial parts of the Mid-City Historic District (Kennicott, 2009; McDill, 2006). The work of the National Trust for Historic Preservation gradually expanded the understanding of “preservation” from saving buildings to a more holistic approach of protecting entire neighborhoods, towns, communities, and the environment.

Furthermore, it changed the thinking of the business community. “Preservation is much more widely accepted today than it was fifteen or twenty years ago,” Moe said in 2009. “Developers don't look at demolition as the first option as a rule, they look at the possibility of adaptive reuse and renovation”

(Kennicott, 2009, p. C12).

Stephanie Meeks succeeded Richard Moe as president and CEO in 2010 and developed a plan for the trust's continued transformation. The federal appropriations that the trust had received in its earlier era were designated for the preservation of its historic properties. The change in funding and a new definition of the trust's mission called for a new model of operating the historic properties it controlled: co-stewarding with locally based nonprofit organizations. Under a 10-year plan, called Preservation 10X, the sites would become locally governed and financially self-sufficient. That would require engaging market forces, .......................

Questions
1. How does the case of the National Trust for Historic Preservation reflect the concept of resource dependence discussed in this chapter? How does it reflect the interaction between sources of revenue and priorities?
2. Think back on (or read again) the discussion in Chapter 2 about the functions that nonprofit organizations perform with regard to government. How does the case of the National Trust for Historic Preservation reflect those various roles?
3. Considering the evolution of the National Trust's activities, which might not have been possible to undertake under its previous funding model?
4. How might an increased reliance on local organizations and market forces to operate historic sites affect the National Trust's priorities in the future?