The Massachusetts Historical Commission is accepting applications for grants. This would be the perfect thing to use CPA for. The Massachusetts Preservation Projects fund gives you a 50% match for historical preservation. If we were in CPA, we could spend some CPA funds on these sorts of projects. The net result would be that we would receive 3 dollars for every 1 dollar we invested.
Look at the numbers. Imagine a theoretical $200K project to restore some historic building. Further imagine that we fund the project with CPA money and this historic grant and assuma a 50% CPA match.
Total cost: $200K
Historic matching: $100K
Middleboro contribution: $67K
CPA matching funds: $33K
End result – we get $200K worth of historic preservation for $67K. That’s nearly a 300% return.
Now let’s get back to reality. Without CPA, most likely we will never spend any money on this historic project, we will not receive the matching CPA funds, and we won’t get any money from this historic grant project.
If you’re not in, you can’t win. If we don’t adopt CPA … we’re not in.
Here is a quote from the Massachusetts Preservation Projects fund web page.
Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin and the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) are pleased to announce Round 15 of the Massachusetts Preservation Projects Fund grant program. The MHC is now accepting applications for Round 15 grants. It is anticipated that funding for Round 15 will be in the range of the previous two grant rounds, Rounds 13 and 14, which were funded at $750,000 and $800,000, respectively.The Massachusetts Preservation Projects Fund (MPPF) is a state-funded 50% reimbursable matching grant program established in 1984 to support the preservation of properties, landscapes, and sites (cultural resources) listed in the State Register of Historic Places. Applicants must be a municipality or nonprofit organization. Historic cultural resources in public and nonprofit ownership and use frequently suffer from deferred maintenance, incompatible use, or are threatened by demolition. These important resources represent a significant portion of the Commonwealth’s heritage. By providing assistance to historic cultural resources owned by nonprofit or municipal entities, the Massachusetts Historical Commission hopes to ensure their continued use and integrity. The program is administered in accordance with 950 CMR 73.00.