A message from Steve Mulroy regarding the hearing held in Chancery Court, Wed Oct. 16th.

“Surprisingly good result today in court on the 19th Century case.  Because the Nashville buyer pulled out, we feared a bad result in court today.
Instead, we had 3 objectives, and we achieved 2.5 of them.

1.  The Court agreed with us that we didn’t have to pay ANY damages to defendants out of the $50,000 injunction bond.  So we continue to have the entire $50,000 for our use.

2.  The Court granted our motion for an injunction pending appeal.  This prevents both demolition and also the spending of any of the proceeds by either the Children’s Museum or the Club.

3.  The Court set the total amount of appellate bond at $100,000. That is, the $50,000 we already have, plus an additional $50,000.  The Court gave us 15 days to raise it. If we deposit another $50,000 by 10 am Fri Nov. 1, all injunctions continue indefinitely until the appeal is resolved.  If we don’t, all injunctions expire automatically at that time.  This is a fundraising challenge, to be sure, but not as bad as it could have been.

In sum, we live to fight another day.”

 

[divider]

MEMPHIS HERITAGE ANNOUNCES
NEW CENTURY FUND

What is the MHI New Century Fund?

Shared to our web site is the following conversation held on Facebook about what needs to happen going forward as Memphis Heritage continues their support of historic preservation in our community.

From: Wendel C Stoltz Why doesn’t Memphis Heritage form a foundation, solicit donations, etc. specifically towards retention of significant properties. The current strategy of waiting until 11th hour and throwing up procedural impediments does not have a very high success rate. Better to save them prior to complete deterioration!

From: Memphis Heritage

Wendel, in 2006/2007 Memphis Heritage established a program called the NEW CENTURY FUND that would do just what you are mentioning. The New Century Fund’s goal is to raise 3 million dollars and use the interest to establish matching grants to non profits etc that held historic properties so that needed repairs could happen in a timely fashion. Presently there is no foundation or fund that does this. We even hired a part time person to assist. ( not having the dollars for this expansion of staff but felt it was that important.)Then the financial bottom fell out and non profits with capital and other financial campaigns were giving pledge cards back relieving their donors of their pledged obligation. The New Century Fund did not grow. We have worked on this campaign for some time behind the scenes but it has been difficult. Not to project a poor pitiful us message but we operate MHI on an annual budget of just $100,000.00 dollars. This does not go very far and it is difficult to make budget year after year. Our funding is strictly through recruitment of memberships, private donations and various fund raisers. It has amazed me over the years that more individuals don’t become a members of our non profit to help us continue our 38 year mission of educating and advocating for historic preservation of our city. We have 1.5 staff that work endless hours to make our city a better place and yet continue to remain at around 400 members. We are a bit prejudice but we fell we should have over 1000 members at least to support what we do. We do not have any dollars for marketing or PR to get the word out just the dedication of volunteers and board members. So if individuals want to assist MHI in being able to do things like..been able to say to the 19th CC 10 years ago “here is 15 grand you raise 10 grand and we will get your roof fixed” This is definitely how it needs to move forward. Anyone willing to get on board with us to help raise the dollars needed for the NEW CENTURY FUND email us right away! [email protected].

Sorry for the long post but the community needs to know that there is a vision for MHI and we need dedicated folks to help us reach our goals.

From: Memphis Heritage In Endowment Campaigns such as the NEW CENTURY FUND the professional strategy is for the organization to raise at least 1/3 of the total amount and then make a community plea but we are so small this has not been possible. We are continually working on this while we do the everyday operations and this is very difficult. We invite anyone or group that would like to assist us to become part of our MHI committee for this fund.  Thanks