A message from the Executive Director

Invest in the Future. Preserve the past.

Invest in the future. Preserve the past.

“Too often when we look at heritage sites in the world, we consider them postcards. But these places aren’t just monuments or mementos of history, they are LIVING history. It is like you’re walking through history. It’s still happening around you.”

Heritage sites, as markers of the past, are part of people’s identity and memory. Our job at GHF is to protect these important structures by providing conservation programs that preserve, but also activate heritage sites for the benefit of local communities through job training, tourism, and a whole range of human and financial investments.

We work in special places, but more importantly, we work with people: indigenous and peasant communities in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Mara mountains of Colombia where we built a health center this year; villagers near Göbekli Tepe in Turkey who last year helped us secure the world’s oldest ceremonial site; Dong minorities in Guizhou, China who saw restoration begin this fall on the drum tower that is the symbolic and physical centerpiece of their community.

We work at sites that have “outstanding universal value” and so we bring to those sites the world’s leading experts in architecture, archaeology, tourism and community development. We help craft conservation and management plans so that tourism and development around these sites remains sustainable. “Sustainable” means that we use our resources – including historic resources – in a way that insures the next generation will enjoy them as well.

From stone conservation training in Laos to the construction of a traditional kiln in Transylvania, the work of Global Heritage Fund is all about investing in the future of those communities that need it most.

To date, GHF has raised over $50 million to support the conservation efforts of 30 cultural heritage sites in 20 countries. This year we concluded six-year rehabilitation and planning efforts in China and Cambodia and have launched new investigations from the Middle East and Latin America to South and East Asia. These are ways GHF invests in the future by preserving the past. GHF will continue to seek out projects where we can leverage long-term social and economic benefit in addition to the conservation work we are known for; but we need your help.

World heritage in poor communities is under greater threat than ever, from neglect, from development, from conflict and climate. Make your difference and help GHF make a difference in the lives of those families and individuals who live near – and ultimately will care for – these rare and beautiful treasures of world heritage.

A major supporter has renewed their commitment to give $1 for every $3 we raise by the end of the year. So please consider supporting GHF this holiday season.

Click here to make your gift online.

Wishing you a joyful holiday season and a healthy and prosperous new year.


Vincent L. Michael, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Global Heritage Fund