Support Historic Preservation

Give an End-of-Year Donation to support the Madison Trust!

Make your donation go further — $10,000 further!

Thanks to former and current members of the Madison Trust Board of Trustees, your end-of-year donation will be doubled! Donations will be matched dollar-for-dollar for the first $10,000 raised through year-end donations.

This means your $25 is now $50, your $100 is $200!

Dear Friends of Historic Preservation,

The Madison Trust is celebrating our 50th Anniversary in 2024 — and it has been a banner year! We were pleased that our past accomplishments and ongoing work were featured in prominent stories in the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Magazine and on Spectrum News.

Two of the news stories highlighted the historic architecture walking tour of the Greenbush neighborhood, which joined our regular summer tour rotation this year. Like all our tours, the Greenbush tour presents Madison’s history by focusing on buildings, people and events. It tells the story of the immigrant and minority communities that helped shape Greenbush and emphasizes that historic preservation means preserving working-class and middle-class neighborhoods and commercial districts, not just grand mansions and civic structures.

Thanks to the dedication of our volunteers and staff, as well as the generous support of our donors, our tours and programs have been increasingly popular. Many of our events have sold out, and we’re eager to expand our offerings to meet the growing demand. With your help, we can do even more to engage and inspire our community.

This is the perfect time to give a end-of-year financial gift to help support the ongoing work of the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation so that we can build on our past efforts and do even more in the future. Every gift, no matter the size, makes a difference and ensures that we can continue our vital work.

Thanks to the support and generosity of so many, we’ve done a lot in the past year!

We continued our education efforts in many interesting and creative ways, including:

• Conducting our seasonal historic architecture walking tours, most of which were sold out. These tours from Memorial Day through early fall are the backbone of our education efforts.

• Presenting our annual specialty walking tour. This year guests enjoyed the Dudgeon-Monroe East neighborhood on sold-out tours. As always, many hours of volunteer time went into researching and planning the specialty tour.

• Honoring recipients of our annual Historic Preservation Awards at a festive, sold-out event at the historic Madison Club, complete with champagne and cake to celebrate our 50th anniversary.

• Celebrating members at our annual member appreciation event at the Hotel Indigo on East Washington Avenue, highlighting the outstanding preservation and adaptive reuse efforts at this historic former warehouse and Mautz Paint factory.

• Hosting a three-part virtual Architectural Series with Zoom programs on Madison’s past, present and future. This series helps us stay connected with everyone during the winter months.

• Co-hosting a Monona Terrace presentation on “Place, Urbanism and Spatial Justice,” which discussed inclusive and equitable development of cities.

There are many ongoing advocacy issues to deal with as Madison continues to grow and develop. We always emphasize that we understand the importance of affordable housing, improved transit and good jobs, and at the same time we want to preserve the best of the past as we help to shape the future.

We addressed many issues this past year through media interviews, contacts with public officials and testimony at City of Madison public hearings. We had some wins, some losses and some mixed outcomes, including:

• Opposing the demolition of three historic buildings in the 400 block of State Street, emphasizing that preserving and reusing buildings like these will protect the streetscape people love with low-rise buildings and eclectic local businesses. Demolition was not approved but debates about State Street will continue in the future.  

• Opposing the demolition of two houses in the Vilas Neighborhood contributing to the Wingra Park National Register Historic District, to preserve the fabric of this historic neighborhood.

• Opposing the demolition of the historic Mifflin Arcade, one block off the Capitol Square, and the historic former Union Bus Depot around the corner attached to the Hovde Building. The bus depot was preserved but not the Mifflin Arcade.

• Opposing the construction of a very large new house in the west yard of the historic Old Spring Tavern property, a link to the stagecoach era of the 1850s. Unfortunately, we narrowly lost this fight, and the new house being built has significantly diminished its historic setting for the worse.

• Sponsoring the Madison Landmark nomination of the Kathryn Clarenbach residence at 2229 Eton Ridge (#183). We also hosted a Zoom program given by Gary Tipler about Clarenbach’s work to help plan and organize several causes and groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW). You can view this program on YouTube.

In terms of our operations, we have grown our membership and Preservation Partners and we continue to be financially stable. Our recently-formed Communications and Community Engagement Committee has helped generate media coverage and is working on initiatives to recruit more members and volunteers to help grow our education and advocacy efforts.

Thanks to a very generous donation from former Madison Trust board member and long-time supporter Erica Fox Gehrig, we were able to create the Madison Trust Preservation Grant program. This year we provided grants to Grace Episcopal Church and the Daniel Campbell House at 125 E. Gilman St. Both historic properties need significant repairs, and we are thrilled to help them!

All of us at the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation send our very best wishes to you and your family for a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year.

For those of you who typically renew your Madison Trust membership at this time, please send those renewals separately. Head over to our Membership page. Our end-of-year donations are designated differently than membership renewals in our accounting records.

Double your donation today!

Make your end-of-year donation by December 31 to qualify for a dollar-for-dollar match of the first $10,000 raised through donations. Together, we can ensure that our treasured historic places are celebrated for generations to come.

Contributions are tax deductible and making a contribution is easy! You can pay by mail or online via credit card, debit card or with a PayPal account.

OR DONATE BY MAIL

• Make checks payable to the “Madison Trust for Historic Preservation”

• Print & complete the End-of-Year Donation Form

• Send the form and check to MTHP at P.O. Box 296, Madison, WI 53701

• Donations must be postmarked by December 31 to be considered for the match

Thank you for supporting historic preservation in Madison!

Questions

If you have any questions regarding this campaign or about the Madison Trust, please contact our program and technology manager, Jennifer Gurske, at info@madisonpreservation.org, (608) 441-8864, or Board of Trustees President Rick Chandler at president@madisonpreservation.org.