Groundwork Grants I

Groundwork Grants I aims to strengthen California's cultural heritage amidst increasing natural disasters such as wildfires and earthquakes. By addressing critical gaps in disaster preparedness identified in a recent survey, this initiative provides essential funding of up to $20,000 for institutions that document underrepresented communities in California's history. In partnership with the California State Library and the Northeast Document Conservation Center, it fosters resilience in cultural heritage organizations, ensuring their collections are safeguarded for future generations.

California faces an escalating threat from natural disasters, endangering cultural heritage collections and underserved communities. Wildfires, earthquakes, and floods not only jeopardize collections but also worsen socioeconomic disparities. Without proper equipment, funding, or partnerships, many small Californian cultural heritage collections are at risk. The urgency is compounded by climate change’s worsening natural disasters, which can strike quickly and escalate over time.
The recent California Cultural Collection Protection Survey revealed critical gaps in disaster preparedness among cultural institutions. Responses indicated a lack of disaster planning, inadequate strategies for long-term collections preservation, insufficient funding, and limited digitization efforts, heightening the vulnerability of these collections to natural disasters.
In response, the California State Library, with funding from the state of California and in partnership with the Northeast Document Conservation Center, developed a major initiative—Ready or Not—to assist cultural heritage organizations in evaluating risks to their collections and begin taking preparatory or remedial steps. In the first step of this initiative, organizations are encouraged to assess how ready their organization is in the event of a disaster. Ready or Not preservation consultants from the Northeast Document Conservation Center conduct on-site assessments across California, free of charge, to identify risk mitigation measures and preservation priorities.
Groundwork Grants, developed in partnership with Myriad Consulting & Training, builds upon this first step by allocating essential financial support to address the identified needs, prioritizing institutions that document the experiences of individuals, groups, and communities whose contributions to California’s history and culture have long been underrepresented in mainstream memory institutions.
Groundwork Grants will also ultimately produce long-term economic benefits by reducing response and recovery costs. Most importantly, this collaborative effort will help to safeguard California's cultural heritage, in its most inclusive form, for generations to come.