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On April 24, 2004, At the
CWPT Annual Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Civil
War Preservation Trust President Jim Lighthizer announced
to more than 300 members and invited guests that the
organization was launching its first-ever capital
campaign. He outlined the goals of this ambitious
effort as being to raise over the next five years,
$25 million from private donors that will leverage
an additional $65 million from public matching sources.
The resulting $90 million will be used to preserve
directly at least 25,000 acres of core Civil War battlefield
land, eclipsing CWPT's current total of more than
18,000 acres saved in the past 15 years. Borrowing
a phrase from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address,
the campaign has been named The Great Task.
"The nation is losing
just over one acre of hallowed ground every hour,"
Lighthizer noted. "Every year, approximately
10,000 acres are either paved over or priced out of
our reach." With an "inventory" of
core battlefield acres still to be saved of about
250,000 acres, and considering the acceleration of
development in many areas, "we are truly the
last generation that has a chance to save these sites,"
he continued. "In twenty years, they will all
be gone."
Recognizing the urgency
of the situation, the CWPT Board of Trustees began
planning for this capital campaign more than a year
ago. The CWPT battlefield mapping program, named the
Vanguard Project (funded by the HTR Foundation), has
been instrumental in identifying and prioritizing
those battlefields of greatest significance that present
the best preservation opportunities. Other board members
have worked diligently to see that federal matching
funds for battlefield preservation have been included
in President Bush's 2004 and 2005 budgets.
On the private fundraising
side, early in 2004, the board was offered a challenge
grant of $1 million by a former trustee, Norman Tomlinson,
if the trustees would increase their personal giving
to match his incredibly generous donation. Additionally,
more than $1.1 million has already been raised from
other benefactors prior to the official announcement.
The general CWPT membership will also be invited to
participate in this historic campaign in various different
ways.
The case statement promotional
brochure for The Great Task emphasizes CWPT's
unique ability to accomplish this goal. It states,
"By combining the expertise of the most knowledgeable
individuals on this period of our history with the
latest technological advances, we know exactly which
battlefield land needs to be preserved...and how quickly
we must act. Through the innovative use of federal,
state, and local governmental matching grant programs,
we are able to multiply the value of every dollar
- often greater than 6 to 1 - that you donate for
battlefield preservation. Further, individuals who
give to help CWPT save hallowed ground have the opportunity
to be recognized - or to recognize an ancestor or
loved one - on permanent, appropriate site markers
erected on battlefields they have helped to preserve."
If you would like more
information about how you can participate in and advance
The Great Task, please contact the CWPT Development
Department at 1-800-CW-Trust x 202.
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