Heritage Consulting History
Since starting her firm and during her career, Donna Ann Harris has assisted citizen groups and government agencies to identify appropriate reuses for threatened historic properties that ensure the long term preservation and maintenance of the site. Throughout her twenty five years in the preservation movement, she has led start-up and mature statewide preservation organizations as an executive, was first staff member of a land and building conservation organization, and directed a wide variety of projects for local preservation organizations.
Prior to starting her firm in 2004, Ms. Harris was state coordinator for the Illinois Main Street program for two years and the manager of the Illinois suburban Main Street program for four years. During her tenure, Ms. Harris served 56 Illinois Main Street communities, led a staff of 12 and managed a budget of over a million dollars. In 2003, Ms. Harris became a Certified Main Street Manager through the National Trust Main Street Center.
In the last six years, Donna has worked with state, countywide and local Main Street programs in Baltimore, City of Philadelphia, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, New Jersey, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York State, Oakland County (MI), Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Wisconsin and Wyoming Main Street.
Donna published several feature articles in the National Trust Main Street Center’s monthly journal Main Street News: "Make More Money from Members" (August, 2008); “Is a BID Feasible for Your Town? Ten Questions to Ponder” (April 2007) and “A Valiant Effort” and “What You Can Do, Lessons From Illinois Main Street” (January 2005). For the last five years Donna has spoken at the National Main Street Center annual conference, and at the International Downtown Association annual meeting for the last two years with Stephanie Redman of ReSurge Inc.
In 2008 Donna began a partnership with Stephanie Redman to develop a training series called “Advanced Organization Academy” six half day training sessions and consultation for mature Main Street organizations. This year we have added three new consulting services. Please see the Collaborations section of the web site for further detail.
Donna's recent book New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation of America’s Historic Houses is viewed as a “must read’ in the house museum field. The book is being used in graduate school classes in museum studies, historic preservation and public history programs across the country. Published by AltaMira Press in 2007, Donna’s book is part of a joint publishing agreement between AltaMira Press and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) to identify important books in the field. Donna has published articles about reuse of historic house museums in History News and Forum Journal from her research for the book. Since 2007 Donna has been asked to speak at more than 30 national, regional and statewide conferences about her house museum research and consulting work. Find out about why the house museum model for preserving older homes no longer works and Donna’s take a broad range of alternatives to save these landmarks for future generations. Order your copy today from Amazon.com
How We Work
Heritage Consulting Inc.’s services can vary from short, project-specific assignments such as board training, strategic planning or committee training to year-long consultations to fundamentally reorganize a non-profit organization or implement downtown local taxing districts. Downtown and historic preservation have special needs and Heritage Consulting prefers to establish long- term working relationships with clients that mature and develop over time. Heritage Consulting works with individuals, nonprofit organizations, for profit businesses, and government agencies at the national, regional, state and local levels
Contact us to see how Heritage Consulting, Inc. can help you today.
