Grants in Action

Greater Portland Landmarks would like to express deep appreciation to the following foundations for recent grants:

Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust for Greater Portland Landmarks’ education programs in 2008.  The Trust’s generous support makes possible a wide variety of programs about historic preservation, architecture, and local history for people of all ages.

Sam L. Cohen Foundation for a comprehensive redesign of the Greater Portland Landmarks web site. A new web site is an essential communication tool that will allow GPL to more fully achieve its mission and reach out more effectively to a broad constituency, including the children who will shape our future.

Edward H. Daveis Benevolent Fund for providing matching funds to complete the MHRAB project (detailed below) and for support for the Frances W. Peabody Research Library, including conserving historic slides, protecting and providing better access to historic maps, and updating our library collections with new texts. The grant will help us provide public access to previously inaccessbile collections, as well as better access to important collections related to the history of the preservation movement in Portland.

MHRAB - The Maine Historic Records Advisory Board toward the cataloguing and archival storage of the papers and photographs of founding members of Greater Portland Landmarks. The founders of GPL were all prominent women, and included Frances W. Peabody, Grace and Ruth Trappan, Nelle Kozodoy, and Mrs. Edith Sills.

National Endowment for the Arts Fast Track Grant toward a Design Congress to bring together architecture and preservation groups to develop strategies to work together more effectively to promote increased awareness of the importance of design in community development decisions.

National Trust for Historic Preservation Intervention Grant toward an alternative study of the two alternatives:  renovation of the Nathan Clifford School (1906-07) versus new construction.  The study, conducted by Nancy Barba of Barba + Wheelock Architecture + Preservation of Portland, showed that the two alternatives are cost comparable.

Phineas W. Sprague Memorial Foundation toward a comprehensive redesign of the Greater Portland Landmarks website. Our goal is to communicate more effectively with our members and the public and to increase participation in Landmarks’ advocacy, programs, tours, and restoration workshops.  We know that an exciting and technologically current web site is essential to this goal.