About

David J. Brown, the founder of Bearden Brown LLC, is a national nonprofit leader, speaker, and author. Over a career spanning more than four decades, David has played leadership roles in the creation, funding, enactment, and long-term delivery of strategic programs and initiatives at local, state, national, and international levels.

  • In the 1990s, David’s leadership at the Preservation Alliance of Virginia led to the nation’s first statewide analysis of the economic impacts of historic preservation. The Alliance used this research as the foundation for a coordinated and successful statewide advocacy campaign, resulting in state historic rehabilitation tax credits that have stimulated more than $4.5 billion in private investment in historic buildings. This model of deep economic analysis followed by a targeted advocacy campaign has been reproduced by preservation advocates in numerous states across the country.
  • At the National Trust for Historic Preservation, David worked closely with the CEO and volunteer leadership to lead the development staff in the first comprehensive capital campaign in the organization’s 50-year history. The successful campaign, completed in 2003, successfully raised $135 million, $10 million above goal, and set the framework for a modern and effective development effort at the National Trust.

In the first two decades of the 21st century, David played pivotal leadership roles in the creation, funding, and implementation of three long-term program initiatives that continue to shape the work of the National Trust and the broader historic preservation movement.

  • Working in close partnership with American Express Corporation, David and his colleagues sought ways to bring more attention and financial resources to important historic sites in communities and neighborhoods. Partners in Preservation resulted in over $30 million being distributed to over 250 historic sites around the country based on the input and votes of local communities and citizen advocates over a 12-year period. 
  • In response to the 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, David, in his role as Chief Preservation Officer, worked closely with the Trust’s CEO to bring together a core and diverse group of colleagues to collaborate with funders and thought leaders to conceive and develop a new program focused on saving African American history. Launched in November 2017 after securing initial leadership support of $5 million, the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund has made an important and lasting contribution to the American landscape by preserving sites of African American activism, achievement, and resilience. In the five years since its launch, the Action Fund has raised more than $91 million and supported 242 preservation projects nationally, making national grants totaling $20 million since 2018. 
  • To ensure that America’s sacred places continue to serve their communities’ material and spiritual needs, the National Trust for Historic Preservation joined Partners for Sacred Places and the Lilly Endowment to establish the National Fund for Sacred Places. As Chief Preservation Officer, David brought together key programmatic and grant-making colleagues to develop the Trust role in this nationwide, collaborative partnership. With funding by Lilly, the National Trust and Partners for Sacred Places will have provided $20 million in capital grants to about 100 recipients by 2023, with another $7 million in planning grants and direct support provided by Partners for Sacred Places.

David’s work as the National Trust’s founding Chief Preservation Officer brought the organization’s historic sites and field offices ― along with the Trust’s public policy, education, and grants-making staffs ― under one division for the first time. Using comprehensive and interlocking strategic plans along with hands-on leadership skills built over four decades in the field, David guided the Preservation Division’s more than 200 staff members towards a common strategic vision. As part of this work, David worked closely with board leadership to develop the first common vision for the 28 National Trust historic sites and he led a campaign to raise $25 million in critical needs funding to address long-standing deferred maintenance issues.

His knowledge of nonprofits and NGOs is combined with proven fundraising experience, program conceptualization and delivery, effective public engagement, extensive governing board involvement, forward-looking strategic planning, and leadership development.

David has served in senior executive and governance roles for local, state, national, and international preservation and heritage conservation groups. At the National Trust for Historic Preservation, he served (1996-2019) as the organization’s founding Chief Preservation Officer, Executive Vice President and Chief of Development, Chief of Staff, and Southern Regional Director. Prior to that service he was the founding Executive Director (1988-1996) of the Preservation Alliance of Virginia, the Commonwealth’s statewide advocacy organization representing more than 150 organizations and 60,000 Virginians.

In addition, David served as a founding Executive Committee member of the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO), helping the world’s National Trusts ― with more than 9 million members worldwide ― work together on an ongoing basis for the first time.

David has experience in a variety of governance roles, including:

  • Trustee (and Trustee Emeritus) of the National Main Street Center (Chicago, IL)
  • Trustee of the Filoli Center (Woodside, CA)
  • Trustee of The Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest (Bedford, VA)
  • Executive Committee Member, International National Trusts Organisation (London, UK)
  • Chair, Governor’s Commission to Study Historic Preservation in Virginia (Richmond, VA)

Through the years David developed staff and leadership mentoring programs that supported dozens of high potential individuals who subsequently attained leadership positions as CEOs, Executive Directors, Division Chiefs, Vice Presidents, and similar roles in local, state, national, and international nonprofit organizations.

A frequent speaker and panelist, David has delivered dozens of high-profile speeches and presentations to audiences that have included prime ministers, cabinet officials, governors, members of Congress, national governing boards, national conference attendees, cultural heritage tourism travelers, and more.

His professional writings have been included in collections as diverse as Bending the Future: Fifty Ideas for the Next Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in the United States (University of Massachusetts Press) and A Tennessee Folklore Sampler: Selected Readings from the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin (University of Tennessee Press). David’s writings have also been featured in The Virginia Record, CRM: The Journal of Heritage Stewardship, Explore Rural India, the Tennessee Historical Quarterly, the Forum Journal, and The Georgia Historical Quarterly. He also writes on More to Come, a personal newsletter with observations and recollections on Leadership as well as “Places That Matter, Books Worth Reading, Roots Music, The Times We Live In, and Whatever Else Tickles My Fancy.”

David has degrees in history (historic preservation emphasis) and planning, participated in the Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management program, and was selected as an Affiliate Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He remains passionate about connecting people in thriving, sustainable, and vibrant communities.