Utah Heritage Foundation

For the past twelve years, Save America’s Treasures has been one of the country’s most important and effective historic preservation efforts, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars for restoration to nationally significant historic sites and special collections in all parts of the U.S.  The National Trust is proud of our role in establishing SAT and our subsequent work with three administrations.  We have been pleased to serve as the program’s principal private partner since its inception.   SAT is a program that has demonstrated its value many times over, as a generator of economic activity and as a symbol of our country’s commitment to ensuring that future generations understand the foundations on which our institutions and freedoms rest.

In the current difficult fiscal environment we face as a country, the federal SAT program was not included in the Administration’s FY11 budget request.  Despite strong and consistent support from preservationists, local government officials, historic site administrators, and many others, Congress is not reinstating any programs that the Administration did not include in its 2011 budget.  Likewise, SAT was not a part of the Administration’s FY12 budget request.  At the National Trust, we have had extensive conversations with Congressional leadership on the future of the program.  While many on the Hill remain supportive of the program, given the political landscape and the budget process now in place, it is clear that Congress will not restore the program’s funding in 2012.

With this conclusion, we have made the reluctant decision to close the Save America’s Treasures office at the National Trust.  SAT at the National Trust has been devoted to assisting sites with applications for the SAT program and helping successful applicants raise the required match. It has worked extensively and creatively with the country’s premier historic places and collections to raise public awareness and shine a bright spotlight on the importance of our cultural resources and the need for their conscientious stewardship. Among the more than 1,200 prestigious projects in which SAT at the Trust has played a critical role are: the restoration of the Star Spangled Banner, San Francisco’s Conservatory of Flowers, Martin Luther King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and the Acoma Pueblo. Other beneficiaries have been the homes of such literary icons as Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder. It also is responsible for supporting the restoration of the last architectural model of the World Trade Center and the related exhibits and interpretation. In addition to the model, when the National Memorial Museum at Ground Zero opens on Sept. 11, 2012, the Last Column – the last structural element removed from the site that contains signatures and graffiti from the families, workers and public officials – will have a prominent place thanks to support from SAT.

Now that the federal SAT program will focus on completing grants already awarded, the need for a private-sector partnership program has significantly changed.  This decision means that SAT’s Director Bobbie Greene McCarthy will be leaving the National Trust as of June 30^th.  As the First Lady’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Bobbie helped Hillary Clinton create the program in 1998 to mark the new Millennium, and has been its tireless leader and advocate since bringing it to the Trust in 2000.  She has built an exceptional network of SAT partners and supporters, raising funds for projects from coast-to-coast, and she has been the Trust’s principal liaison to two First Ladies – the program’s Founding Chair Hillary Clinton, and her successor, Mrs. Laura Bush. We will be honoring her service prior to her departure.

We have offered SAT’s long-time Program Manager Fiona Lawless the position of Forum Marketing Coordinator within our Forum Department.  We hope to be able to retain Fiona in a position where her great skills and knowledge of the SAT network, and her commitment to historic preservation, will help us connect those places with our other partnership networks and groups.

I know you join me in thanking Bobbie and Fiona for their exceptional work on behalf of SAT and the National Trust.

Warmest regards,

Stephanie Meeks, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation

This will be a tremendous loss on the landscape of providing direct, bricks and mortar funding for preservation across the country.  Locally, SAT provided grants for important and ongoing projects such as Cedar Mesa, Spring City School, Enola Gay Hangar at Wendover Air Force Base, Ogden's Union Station, Fisher Mansion in Salt Lake City, and collections at Promontory Cave.  While these projects will continue, the lack of an additional funding option for nationally significant structures will be a difficult obstacle.  --Kirk