The Cultural Heritage Finance Alliance (CHiFA) promotes heritage-led regeneration through collaborative and innovative financing solutions. CHiFA aims to build a global marketplace and a supportive ecosystem of expertise and civic interests premised on opportunities for capital investment in historic places.
Heritage-led regeneration stimulates local economies and strengthens communities. At a time when accelerating climate change, catastrophic natural disasters, sustained conflicts and a global health pandemic are rapidly changing the world as we know it, historic environments provide cultural grounding, reinforce well-being, and foster a sense of common humanity and collective identity. It is important for heritage places to survive and prosper and it is within our collective ability to see that they do. CHiFA makes the case that historic places are unique assets that embody many of the values that sustainable development seeks to capture.
Government and philanthropic resources are scarce and fall far short of documented need; private sector investment is elusive for all but the highest-profile international projects. CHiFA was established to leverage new capital to revitalize heritage sites stressed by lack of resources and to invest in new uses to sustain them for the long term.
View the Webinar “Heritage Entrepreneurs Meet Capital Markets.” CHiFA’s team members Bonnie Burnham and Gary Hattem present our methodology for heritage regeneration through collaborative financing solutions and discuss it with leading heritage entrepreneurs. Click here to view the video
American Express Foundation and CHiFA Collaborate to Bring Mexican Communities out of Poverty through Heritage Tourism
The Tehuacán-Cuautitlán Biosphere Reserve was inscribed as World Heritage in 2018, opening a new opportunity for the people of the region to diversify their economy, now based on unsustainable agriculture. The Ruta del Río Grande will bring sustainable tourism to the area that is rich in environmental and cultural heritage, including the Cuicatec culture Cave of the Little Hands pictured here. Read the press release by clicking here.