National Preservation Partners Network
2026 Fall Convening

Lauren was appointed President of The L’Enfant Trust in 2017, after serving as Executive Director and Director of Preservation. In 2012, she initiated the Trust’s Historic Properties Redevelopment Program. Lauren has a B.A. in Art History and Historic Preservation & Community Planning from the College of Charleston and a M.S. in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lauren is a past Chair of the Preservation Action Foundation, a former board member of the ACE DC Mentor Program, and a past citizen member of the Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Committee of Washington, DC’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6C. She currently serves as President of the Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians. In 2026, Lauren was appointed by the Mayor and approved by the Council of the District of Columbia to serve as an Architectural Historian on the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB).

Barbara O’Reilly, CFRE, has spent more than 30 years helping nonprofits raise more money with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Her fundraising career includes leadership roles at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where she worked with donors who care deeply about protecting the places that tell America’s story, as well as Harvard, Oxford University, and the American Red Cross. She now leads Windmill Hill Consulting, where she and her team partner with organizations nationwide to grow major gifts, strengthen fundraising systems, and deepen donor engagement. A past president of AFP’s Washington DC Metro Chapter, Barbara serves on the board of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Giving Institute and Giving USA Foundation, and chairs the Research Committee of the Giving USA Foundation.

Nakita Reed is an award-winning preservation architect whose work sits at the intersection of sustainability, development, and cultural heritage. She is Senior Director of Preservation Operations for the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In this role, she helps strengthen preservation practice systems, supports strategic partnerships, and advances preservation education.

Nakita holds a Master of Architecture and a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia. She is a registered architect, a LEED® Accredited Professional, and a certified Passive House Consultant.

She serves on the board of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation, the Zero Net Carbon Collaboration for Existing and Heritage Buildings (ZNCC), The L’Enfant Trust, and Built Buildings Lab. She also hosts Tangible Remnants, a podcast that demystifies building reuse for owners and developers.

Donovan D. Rypkema is principal of PlaceEconomics, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate and economic development-consulting firm. The work of the firm is at the nexus of historic preservation and economics. He has undertaken assignments for public and non-profit sector clients in 49 US states. He also teaches a course on the economics of historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania where he received the 2008 G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Rypkema was educated at Columbia University receiving a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation. He is author of several publications including Community Initiated Development, The Economics of Rehabilitation, and the Feasibility Assessment Manual for Reusing Historic Buildings. Rypkema’s book, The Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide is widely used by preservationists nationwide and has been translated in to Russian, Georgian, and Korean.

Rypkema has worked with such groups as the Urban Land Institute, the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, the American Planning Association, Smart Growth America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the International Downtown Association. Federal Government clients have included the U.S. Army, the Department of State, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Interior, and the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation for whom he prepared a report entitled Measuring Economic Impacts of Historic Preservation.

In the fall of 2012 Rypkema received the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Crowninshield Award is the nation’s highest preservation honor and awarded for lifetime contribution to historic preservation in the United States.