Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

The History Channel Works to Save Our History

Nearly every community in America has a rich historical legacy lurking in its buildings, monuments, cemeteries, neighborhoods and archives. The History Channel wanted to find a way to help unlock this vast treasure and created Save Our History, a unique grant program aimed at teaming up local history organizations with schools and youth groups to teach children about their local heritage, and actively engage them in its preservation.

Drawing on our skills in developing, managing and evaluating grantmaking programs, we worked with Save Our History to evaluate nearly 700 applications from all 50 states, and awarded $256,000 in grants to 29 organizations in late 2004.

Now in its second year, the breadth of the grantees’ programs speaks to the tremendous success of the Save Our History project. For example, 65 high school students in Millville, New Jersey, have worked to commemorate the community’s key role as a training ground for World War II pilots by conducting on-camera oral histories of local veterans. Seventh- and eighth-grade students in Cleveland, Mississippi, organized a Mississippi Delta Road Show to collect from the community photographs capturing the history and culture of the region, and published them in a 16-page booklet. In Haines, Alaska, 275 students preserved an endangered totem pole known as the “The Friendship Pole,” while a group of 11th-graders from Philadelphia took part in an urban archaeological dig at The Johnson House, a national historic landmark, and a stop on the Underground Railroad.