Kentucky · Nonprofit
BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC
BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC (Kentucky) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $718,592 to it, the largest being MILDRED H DUNNING MEMORIAL FUND TRUST CENTRAL BANK AND TRUST COMPANY ($249,325). 11 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $639k
- Funders on record
- 15
- Grants received
- $719k
- Net assets
- $5.7M
What Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation Inc does
Mission
Our mission is to be central kentucky's resource for protecting, revitalizing, and promoting our historic places, enhancing the quality of life for all. Our vision is to live in a community that honors its diverse cultural legacies through historic preservation.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Historic preservation education: the blue grass trust educates central kentuckians on the benefits and practices of historic preservation. Our educational programming includes: detours: founded in january 2011, the monthly blue grass trust detours program is designed to provide free, easily accessible tours of places the public cannot normally access, helping people interact with and learn about the historic places that make central kentucky special. Tour the historic bluegrass: free print and digital self-guided tours of the historic district designations in fayette county, along with thematic tours on successful examples of adaptive reuse of historic properties. The hopemont lecture: named after the 1814 home that spurred the creation of the blue grass trust, the hopemont lecture brings the nation's foremost preservationists and historians to central kentucky. Free and open to the public, the lectures include a workshop for kentucky's preservation professionals and a community volunteer action. Preservation matters: the blue grass trust's signature biannual publication informs thousands of the sweeping, beneficial impacts of preservation in central kentucky. Amplifying…
$447,392 spent$23,301 earned by the program100% of program spendingHistoric preservation advocacy: the blue grass trust lends our voice to historic preservation efforts in our central kentucky communities. Our advocacy work includes: community outreach: through programs, events, and outreach efforts, we strive to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the region's cultural heritage and legacy for future generations, actively advocating for policies, programs, and initiatives that protect and promote historic sites, buildings, neighborhoods, and landscapes through means such as highlighting demolition threats and organizing petitions to save endangered buildings. In 2023-2024, we led the community efforts to save 13 national-register-listed buildings from demolition and successfully argued against unfair bond requirements for preservation advocacy at the kentucky supreme court. Preservation awards: for over 30 years, the preservation awards have highlighted the positive, far-reaching impact that preservation plays in central kentucky by honoring individuals, projects, and organizations that exemplify the promotion, awareness, or practice of historic preservation within the central kentucky region. Preserving palmer pharmacy: saved from…
Direct historic preservation services: the blue grass trust serves as a resource and guide to help central kentuckians in their historic preservation efforts while engaging in preservation stewardship projects of our own. Our services include: consultation and advising: through its professional staff and free digital resources on its website, the blue grass trust assists members of our communities in finding resources and funding, navigating their historic preservation projects, and understanding the national register and historic tax credit programs. In this year we consulted, advised, or otherwise assisted with community preservation efforts, large and small, in every central kentucky county and fielded around 100 direct requests for preservation assistance. Property stewardship: the blue grass trust directly stewards four unique historic properties, three of which are on the national register of historic places and all of which are within historic designation overlays. These properties include hopemont, latrobe's pope villa, endicott cottage, and the dr. Thomas hunt morgan house. In 2023-2024, we invested almost $450,000 for a vital restoration of hopemont, built in 1814. The…
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $447,392.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2023 to 2024, from $6.5M to $5.5M (−16%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2021 8% · 2022 6% · 2023 22% · 2025 10%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
76% of BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (64% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Jonathan Coleman
Executive director
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $11k → $128k.
4 of 15 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 34% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 35% of grant income and the top three 70%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
41% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 94% · 2018 55% · 2019 49% · 2020 47% · 2021 67% · 2022 44% · 2023 50% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
57% of BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 73% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
88% of BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC's grant income comes from Kentucky funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $243k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC has grown faster than half of the 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,634 arts & culture nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Government funding BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $748k on record.
- Department of the Interior$748k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Kentucky
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
72% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
65%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC?
- BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC (Kentucky) receives grants from 15 organizations whose IRS filings report $718,592 to it, the largest being MILDRED H DUNNING MEMORIAL FUND TRUST CENTRAL BANK AND TRUST COMPANY ($249,325). 11 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC have?
- IRS filings report 15 organizations giving $718,592 in grants to BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC, 11 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC?
- MILDRED H DUNNING MEMORIAL FUND TRUST CENTRAL BANK AND TRUST COMPANY is the largest funder on record, with $249,325 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BLUE GRASS TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Kentucky. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 15 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing