State and Local Nonprofit Organizations

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State and Local Nonprofit Organizations
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Local organizations predominate among nonprofits

• Most statewide programs are the result of
  challenges and opportunities that developed once
  the federal government began to fund some
  preservation outreach. 1. No consistent
  structure or mandate because there is no
  consistent financial incentive to establish a
  statewide organization.
• a. Statewide programs almost always assume a
  paid staff, even if very small.
• b. Many states did not have a statewide
  non-profit until the past fifteen years.
• 2. Statewide agencies are most often involved in
  advocacy and educational programs.
• a. Lobby state legislatures for improved
  conditions for preservation.
• b. Serve as clearinghouses for information about
  current "best practice" in preservation including
  both nonprofit and governmental agencies
  activities.
• 3. Preservation Virginia formed from the
  combination of the APVA and Preservation Action
  an advocacy group in Virginia

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local preservation often will coalesce around a
particular resource or situation

• Many local preservation organizations initially
  evolved from quality of life associations,
  volunteer, civic pride, activist political
  movements in which women played a
  disproportionately large role.
• League of Women Voters and Women's Clubs were
  organizations that raised the level of
  understanding of issues impacting the community
  and sought ways to ameliorate or reduce the
  harmful effects of change through both
  educational forums and political actions

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Paying for preservation

• Local preservation efforts in small towns and
  rural areas may also include a full range of
  heritage activities beyond saving building
  fabric-creation of museum spaces, undertaking
  maintenance of significant memorials and
  commemoratives, establishing festive events
  celebrating local and national patriotic
  associations.

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Revolving Fund as a local preservation practice.

• 1. Revolving funds are categorized as either
  acquisition/ resale funds or lending funds. a.
  An acquisition/resale revolving fund usually
  purchases troublesome historic properties and
  resells them to sympathetic purchasers with
  preservation restrictions. These funds also are
  used to produce affordable housing and encourage
  neighborhood diversity. . b. A lending fund,
  also known as a revolving loan fund, commonly
  makes loans on favorable terms to persons or
  businesses for the purchase or rehabilitation of
  important structures as the loans are repaid,
  new loans are made, recycling the same funds.
• 2. Revolving funds usually lose money on each
  transaction after administrative costs are
  factored in. a. Most revolving funds are
  financially replenished to sustain their level of
  capitalization. This may be through house tour
  ticket sales, or fund raising efforts.

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• 3. Why haven't revolving funds multiplied in
  recent years at the same rate as their sister
  organizations, land trusts? a. Many nonprofits
  are averse to risk. b. Operating costs are high.
  c. Organizations lack highly specialized
  personnel needed, whether volunteer or paid. d.
  Revolving fund needs personnel knowledgeable
  about real estate, law, and finance. e. Few if
  any preservation degree or certificate programs
  offer in-depth training in these subjects.
• 4. Amount necessary for revolving fund is less
  when purchasing property options to carry out
  their transactions. The fund can find a buyer for
  the property before it obligates itself to an
  outright purchase.
• 5. Gifts of property can help capitalize a
  revolving fund

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Preservation easement is a set of legally binding
restrictions that are voluntarily placed on a
property by its owner

• 1. Since 1969, federal (and often state) income
  tax laws have allowed a charitable deduction for
  the donation of preservation easements on
  historic properties. a. An owner may deduct the
  amount by which the easement is determined to
  have reduced the property's value. b. An
  easement may also have important ramifications
  for additional forms of taxation, such as local
  property taxes and federal estate and state
  inheritance taxes.
• 2. Holding easements carries with it substantial
  legal responsibilities for a nonprofit
  organization. a. Since an income tax deduction
  is often central to the language, timing, and
  valuation of the easement, the nonprofit
  recipient must take its enforcement
  responsibilities seriously or risk scrutiny and
  possible penalties from the IRS. b. Some
  organizations charged fees to hold easements in
  order to create endowments for future costs of
  monitoring and challenges.
• 3. In the 1990s easements were less popular as
  the IRS became more strict in their oversight.
  Still a tool for preservation.

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Affinity groups in historic preservation

• Affinity groups are non-spatially focused
  volunteer associations. 1. Affinity groups focus
  on a particular kind of resource, whether it is
  based upon events (Civil War), ethnic heritage
  (German-American), or object form (furniture,
  Victorian houses).
• 2. Others are serving career interests the
  Vernacular Architecture Forum, Society of
  Architectural Historians (SAH), and National
  Council on Public History.
• 3. A number of affinity groups have formed
  around professional and organizational issues
  the National Council of Preservation Executives,
  National Alliance of Historic Preservation
  Commissions, and National Association of
  Statewide Preservation Organizations.
• B. Affinity groups may develop to give weight to
  the common issues impacting the members and urge
  political action.

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Issues for nonprofit preservation organizations

• Preservation nonprofits generally succeed on the
  basis of their local leadership and support.
• 1. Other factors that will influence the
  effectiveness of nonprofits include a.
  Preservation policies of federal and state
  governments b. The health of the economy.
• 2. A critical need will be success in finding
  funding in both the private and public sectors.

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Additional factors impacting local levels

• 3. Progressive incentives for historic
  rehabilitation through tax advantages by federal,
  state and local governments will continue to be
  important. a. The creation of a national tax
  incentive for the rehabilitation of
  owner-occupied historic homes would energize
  nonprofits nationwide.
• 4. Government actions that would adversely
  impact preservation indirectly would include
• a. The adoption of a flat tax without provision
  for charitable deductions, taking away any
  financial incentive to be charitable.
• b. The elimination of federal estate and state
  inheritance taxes would be especially detrimental
  to planned giving efforts, through which
  charities receive their largest donations.
• Forecast of intergenerational transfer of wealth
  anticipated in the first decades of the
  twenty-first century presents an unequaled
  opportunity for preservation organizations to
  build their endowments.
• 1. Over the next half-century more than 41
  trillion will be transferred on the death of
  Americans who have experienced unprecedented
  wealth accumulation.
• 2. Tax laws strongly encourage planned
  charitable giving to avoid huge federal huge
  federal estate and state inheritance taxes.