To borrow a phrase from Abraham Lincoln, “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” Thanks to your support, this past year has been one of tremendous change and progress. We have embraced new opportunities to achieve our mission to make the story of Lincoln’s life, legacy, and leadership available to all people.

Since the beginning of 2022 we:

  • Relaunched the Foundation with a new name, brand, and broader mission.
  • Directed a new, grant-funded education project launching this fall. The website will provide teacher-developed lesson plans, digital media featuring scholars, and will delve into Lincoln’s response to threats to freedom and democracy in the 1850s.
  • Established a new partnership with the National Park Service in support of the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, which includes over a dozen buildings on over 12 acres.
  • Received a grant from the National Park Foundation and individual donors like you to launch a 6-month, nationwide study. The study will explore the needs and best models for scaling support of Lincoln’s legacy and related historic places across the country.
  • Secured a transformative gift to create an entirely new, youth-centered exhibit in the historic Corneau House across from the Lincoln Home. The gift covers the total project from interpretive planning through installation next year. This will be the first time in the site’s 50-plus-year history that an exhibit space will be designed for a youth audience.

Give today to the Annual Fund to support these and other upcoming efforts. We’re hard at work with our partners and with historians like Dr. Jonathan White to increase public access to historical evidence and different perspectives on Abraham Lincoln and his legacy. This work is key to understanding what Lincoln called the “unfinished work” of freedom and democracy in our own time.

Read a Special Message from author and historian Dr. Jonathan White

Dr. Jonathan White

September 2022

Dear friend:

As a Professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and as Vice Chair of The Lincoln Forum, I can attest that the Lincoln Presidential Foundation has an important mission worth supporting. Each time I have participated in a Foundation program—from their Four Score Speaker Series webinars to the new digital education project on Lincoln in the 1850s—I have been so impressed by how the Foundation and its staff are finding innovative and effective ways to engage their audience. As times and circumstances have changed, the Foundation has effectively pivoted to establish new goals and meet current needs. And I have been so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the Foundation’s programming and to share my research and passion for history with their audience.

One of the struggles we have as a society is persuading young people to learn about American history. Fortunately, the Foundation is doing excellent work connecting experts and teachers with students and the public. Their new initiative at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield is so exciting because it will expressly aim to capture the attention and imagination of young people who visit the site. I applaud the Foundation for taking a “big tent” approach to their work, finding new ways to partner and collaborate with organizations and experts doing work related to our 16th president’s life and legacy.

The importance of donor contributions like yours and mine cannot be overstated. Your gift is crucial to the Foundation’s mission to democratize Abraham Lincoln, making the story of his life, legacy, and leadership
available to all people.

—Dr. Jonathan White

The Foundation is doing essential work to help preserve the Lincoln story for the future, and I hope you will join me in being a part of that unfinished work.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

Dr. Jonathan White

Vice Chairman, The Lincoln Forum

Give to the Annual Fund today