Alliance for Response: A National Program on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Management

FAIN: PE-50042-10

Heritage Preservation (Washington, DC 20005-3403)
Jane S. Long (Project Director: July 2009 to March 2011)
Cindy Thompson (Project Director: March 2011 to March 2012)
Lori Foley (Project Director: March 2012 to August 2013)

Funding supports three Alliance for Response forums, two national institutes, and an educational outreach campaign focused on developing and sustaining partnerships between cultural institutions and emergency management and response officials to enhance the protection of cultural heritage collections.

Humanities collections throughout the country are vulnerable to emergencies, from localized flooding to region-wide catastrophic events. Alliance for Response: A National Program on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Management aims to educate stewards of humanities collections on how to collaborate with cultural heritage institutions and emergency management agencies to implement networks, plans, and policies that reduce the risk of damage to collections. Relationships with emergency management agencies are key to protecting collections, but few cultural heritage institutions have formal ones and few emergency management agencies include cultural heritage in official disaster planning. Training will take place at Alliance for Response Forums, Leadership Institutes, and through education of emergency managers on the importance of humanities collections to communities. This project builds on Heritage Preservation's six years of success with Alliance for Response.