Keynote
How We Can Make Preservation More Relevant to More People
At its 50th anniversary, Landmarks Illinois embarked on an effort to explore how to move preservation forward over its next 50 years, culminating in its seminal guiding principles. What the organization found is that preservationists across the nation are deeply questioning our practices and our movement’s future. Landmarks Illinois president & CEO Bonnie McDonald was awarded a 2020 James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation Mid-Career Fellowship to help bring the field’s challenges, and solutions, to the forefront through the Relevancy Project. Between 2019-2021, Bonnie McDonald spoke to 130 individuals, both within and outside of the preservation field, to explore these questions and bring forward crowdsourced wisdom illuminating how change is possible. The project evolved into a forward-looking effort to catalogue preservation’s issues, to make the case for its opportunities, to highlight resources, and to instigate collective action toward change that will build a more relevant and just movement. McDonald will explore the findings catalogued in her book, “The Relevancy Guidebook: How We Can Transform the Future of Preservation,” published by Landmarks Illinois in November 2023. Read her January 2023 Next City Op Ed and guidebook Executive Summary for a primer on the Relevancy Project’s outcomes.
Bonnie McDonald
President & CEO, Landmarks Illinois
Bonnie McDonald has led statewide nonprofit Landmarks Illinois since 2012 after almost seven years at the helm of the Minnesota statewide preservation organization. Her 23-year career leading placekeeping nonprofits has focused on transformational change to realize relevant community impact. Bonnie is reframing preservation as a solution for society’s critical needs around climate change, public health, housing and social justice. She is a thought leader and national voice for evolving preservation at its current inflection point. The James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation awarded Bonnie its 2020 Mid-Career Fellowship, supporting a research initiative culminating in The Relevancy Guidebook: How We Can Transform the Future of Preservation, published in 2023. Bonnie chaired the National Preservation Partners Network, co-chaired the Chicago Monuments Project Advisory Committee, and is a member of the National Council on Public History Labor Task Force and Illinois Route 66 Centennial Commission. She has a Historic Preservation Planning Master’s Degree from Cornell University and an Art History Bachelor’s Degree, Summa Cum Laude, University of Minnesota.
The 2025 Keynote Speaker is sponsored by:
