BBF Receives a $5,000 Grant Through the National Trust Preservation Fund Program

Boston By Foot has received a $5,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation through the National Trust Preservation Fund. These funds will be used to produce a series of 8-10, short-form educational videos (3-5 minutes each) featuring lesser-known historic sites from our walking tours across Boston. This pilot project will engage new audiences in preservation through accessible, place-based visual storytelling.

The videos will feature historic sites drawn from BBF walking tours, with a focus on lesser-known places and stories in neighborhoods across the city. Produced in a journalistic, documentary style, each video will combine on-location footage with interviews featuring BBF volunteer guides, historians, preservation professionals, and community members. These perspectives will demonstrate how historic places shape community identity and why their preservation matters today. The pilot is directly aligned with Boston By Foot’s mission to inspire discovery and exploration of Boston’s history while introducing new audiences to the preservation movement.

BBF volunteer guides will serve as key collaborators, contributing subject matter expertise and experience interpreting historic places for public audiences. Depending on the site, the videos will be developed in collaboration with local historians, preservation advocates, cultural organizations such as Main Streets, and community members with lived connections to the featured sites. This co-creative approach ensures that community voices shape both content and framing and supports preservation outcomes by building public awareness, strengthening local stewardship, and encouraging community investment in historic resources. Collaborators will also be invited to serve as partners in distribution, helping amplify reach and engage new audiences.

Grants from the National Trust Preservation Funds range from $2,500 to $5,000. Grant programs from the National Trust have provided over $5 million since 2014. The matching grants from the National Trust Preservation Funds are awarded to nonprofit organizations and public agencies across the country to support wide-ranging activities including consultant services for rehabilitating buildings, technical assistance for tourism that promotes historic resources, and the development of materials for education and outreach campaigns.

Learn more about the National Trust Preservation Fund, visit SavingPlaces.org/grants.