Preservation Long Island
Our mission is to celebrate and preserve Long Island’s diverse cultural and architectural heritage through advocacy, education, and stewardship of historic sites and collections.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Advocacy
Preservation Long Island has championed the preservation of historic places and neighborhoods throughout the region since 1948, encouraging community-based alternatives to demolition, overbuilding, and civically insensitive redevelopment. This work includes providing technical support and advisory services to individuals and groups engaged in local preservation efforts as well as our list of Endangered Historic Places, which seeks nominations from the public every other year. Our biennial Awards also recognize exemplary achievement in preservation across Long Island.
Education
Preservation Long Island's educational programming shares our region's diverse cultural heritage with students. We offer several on-site programs for school groups carefully designed to reinforce Common Core and New York State Next Generation learning standards across grade levels and curriculums. Each of our distinctive historic properties allows students to contextualize classroom topics such as the American Revolution, Slavery, Emancipation, Maps & Globes, Trade, the Constitution, and more.
At Preservation Long Island's gallery, located at our headquarters in Cold Spring Harbor, we connect visitors with the stories of Long Island's remarkable past through changing exhibitions that showcase four centuries of fine and decorative arts, architecture, historic documents, and material culture from across the region.
Stewardship
Preservation Long Island owns, maintains, and interprets four historic properties and extensive collections embodying various aspects of our region's distinctive history. Our historic properties include three house museums including Joseph Lloyd Manor (built 1776-7) in Lloyd Harbor, Sherwood-Jayne Farm (ca. 1730) in Setauket, the Custom House (ca. 1790) in Sag Harbor, and Preservation Long Island's headquarters and exhibition gallery in Cold Spring Harbor. Our collections encompass one of the most significant regional assemblages of material culture in New York State, with over 8,000 objects and archival materials ranging from artistic and technological masterworks to documentary imagery and everyday artifacts. Hundreds of these items are available for browsing online at preservationlongisland.historyit.com as part of Preservation Long Island's ongoing digitization project.
Where we work
Awards
Commissioner's Annual Not-For-Profit Achievement Award 1999
New York State Historic Preservation Office
Citation - Engaging Communities Award from the Museum Association of New York 2022
New York State Assembly
Excellence in Historic Preservation Organizational Achievement 2020
New York State Historic Preservation Office
Excellence in Historic Preservation Annual Award 2003
The Preservation League of New York
Recognition for contribution and assistance in publishing The Long Island Tour Guide 1992
The Long Island Chapter of The American Institute of Architects
Special Congressional Recognition for Designation of Joseph Lloyd Manor as a Literary Landmark 2020
New York State Congress - Thomas Suozzi
Citation 2023
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of Facebook followers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of people on the organization's email list
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Promote better board and public engagement, strengthen fundraising, increase visibility, and achieve institutional sustainability. The primary Collections goals include strengthening collections management, security, and accessibility by improving intellectual control over databases and objects on-site and in storage; digitizing collections for public access, research and exhibitions; and improved and improving environmental controls at
all facilities.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Successful adoption of new governance documents, brand messaging through name change, increased professional staff, and efforts to improve poor fundraising outcomes. Recent outcomes include the hiring of a development professional in 2023 whose focus has been intentional community and constituent engagement which includes receiving feedback and creating a more inclusive experience.
Collections-focused staff hires, continued conservation by priority, creation of a publicly accessible collections digital database, new collection forms and updated collection policies, an archive needs assessment and preservation survey, a historic housekeeping handbook, a risk assessment for collections and historic properties, and an emergency response plan. Currently in progress is a full baseline object collections inventory at all PLI facilities that will inform how PLI plans, prioritizes, and implements all future collections management initiatives towards improved preservation and public access, both actual and virtual.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Preservation Long Island
Board of directorsas of 01/18/2024
Henry Clark
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Not applicable -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Not applicable
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
No data
The organization's co-leader identifies as:
No data
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 11/27/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.