Grants TO DESCENDANTS

OPI supports Black descendants and community-based preservationists whose histories, places, and practices have often been overlooked by traditional preservation. Through its grant program, OPI funds projects that strengthen connections between people and place while expanding how Black cultural landscapes are preserved, interpreted, and sustained. 

At the heart of this work is a community-centered approach that trusts descendants to define what preservation requires in their own communities. By directing resources to the people closest to these places, OPI helps turn local knowledge, lived experience, and community priorities into preservation action. 

OPI’s geographic focus is intentional. Across Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, California, and Nova Scotia, our grantee communities reflect interconnected histories of Black migration, settlement, placemaking, and cultural life. Together, these locations help trace how Black communities have moved, built, sustained, and carried place across generations.