CONSULTANT FOR ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
I’m a historic preservation planner and writer who, since 2005, has carved out a niche specialty: development for historic preservation non-profits, including a couple of leadership positions. Homing in further, I’m now exclusively a consultant for strategic preservation planning and grant writing. I’ve written successful proposals for large and transformational grants from national funders including Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Park Service (Save America’s Treasures, etc.), as well as from the state offices involved in this work: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. I’ve spent the most time on work benefiting the (truly legendary) Germantown section of Philadelphia, since 2011; Philadelphia’s underknown strands of 20th century modernism, since 2010; and England, place of my heart, in particular during the early 2000s. Clients have included a historic site consortium, a history of science museum, a preservation advocacy nonprofit, and individual architectural and horticultural sites. Contact me for references, and here are a few words said.
I specialize in assessing the significance of historic architecture and identifying the contemporary values imbued in old buildings and landscapes. I help organizations make their strongest cases for architectural conservation projects and cultural programming and secure the funding needed to begin. I also assess and advise on preservation priorities among a municipality’s inventory of old, potentially historic buildings. While the word “sustainable” in the context of building connotes environmentally friendly, here I mean financially sustainable. A sustainable place has immediate funding coupled with detailed, realistic long-range plans for use and fundraising. Too many places don’t. I believe strongly in the need for pragmatic assessments that avoid overly grand or hopeful thinking in favor of right-sized projects with financial sustainability.
skills
- Advising on, writing, and producing federal, state, and private-foundation grants for architectural conservation and humanities programming at places of cultural significance
- Creating holistic fundraising plans with diversified revenue streams for places of cultural significance
- Assessing cultural significance value and identifying equitable priority among a municipality’s inventory of historic, and potentially historic, architectural resources
- Writing nominations for historical registry and governmental regulation
places
I’m based in the river towns of eastern Bucks County, Pennsylvania, accessible to Greater Philadelphia and central New Jersey, and previously I lived and worked in Philadelphia and New York City. I have a masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania in historic preservation planning and community economic development, an undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence College with a concentration in urban studies, and I studied humanities broadly as a 2001-02 visiting student at Wadham College, Oxford University.
Historic preservation is (in huge part) a written endeavor.
EXPERTISE IN GRANT WRITING
In a field that deals with the 3-dimensional material fabric of the built environment, it’s surprising that successful architectural conservation hinges on writing. Conservation work happens through the hands of craftspeople, the technical skill of masonry specialists and woodworkers, the spatial and aesthetic understanding of architects. But it begins with writing at a computer.
Typically, architectural conservation cannot happen without first writing a strong case that convinces regulators and funders of the building’s exceptionally strong significance vis-a-vis various criteria. Statements of significance, building documentation, and grant proposals are necessary to gain funding and/or legally-binding protections for vulnerable, invaluable architecture. Writing a strong case makes it all happen. The catch is that this type of writing is cumbersome, time-consuming, sometimes more complicated than it needs to be, and usually highly competitive — for example, the grant funding rate for new projects is typically only 30-40%.
Plenty of non-profits do not have, or barely have, capacity to produce strong, competitive proposals for their most essential work. Simply, they are too small — both underfunded and understaffed. I know this personally. My past experiences as the development director for two conservation non-profits underscored a catch-22 that is pervasive in the small-to-mid-size nonprofit world: we needed money to do building work, but, however highly driven, were too overworked with competing priorities and unclear direction. And, hard fact: a funding proposal that is hastily produced, not as strong as it could be, will probably receive a rejection letter. There are always so many other worthy projects seeking funding, too. (And, no, we can’t just quickly rework that other proposal because this one asks completely different questions….) One solution is outsourcing to a professional, well rooted in the field, who is knowledgeable about your organization (or can quickly gain knowledge), its culture and history, its strategic goals, the community’s funding climate, and so forth. My fees are not prohibitive, as they slide in relation to a client-organization’s operating budget.
I pivoted from a staff setting to freelance consulting to focus on the written work I love most. I have written successful proposals for major grants from the National Park Service, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and many (many) private funds both big and small. With my knowledge of Greater Philadelphia history, places, philanthropy, and building and conservation regulations, along with my academic background in architectural history and urban planning, I move efficiently to grasp a project idea and direction, begin the writing, and meet the deadline with relative ease. These written cases can secure a historic building (literally) and catalyze new life for it. Additional funding streams typically follow.