Groundwork Grants II - Major Projects

Groundwork Grants II - Major Projects aims to enhance disaster preparedness for California's cultural heritage collections, which face increasing threats from natural disasters. With funding up to $150,000, the program supports organizations in upgrading equipment and facilities, particularly those that highlight underrepresented communities. This initiative, developed with Myriad Consulting & Training, seeks to mitigate risks and ensure the preservation of California's diverse cultural heritage 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 II: Major Projects, developed in partnership with Myriad Consulting & Training, provides financial support to address significant improvements in disaster preparedness, 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. The program aims to assist organizations with costly equipment upgrades, facility renovations, or storage solutions recommended by consultants. Most importantly, this collaborative effort will help to safeguard California's cultural heritage, in its most inclusive form, for generations to come.