Living Legacy Initiative

The Appalshop archive is one of the largest audio-visual repositories of central Appalachian history.

Appalshop started as a film workshop in 1969 but expanded its mission to include documenting and celebrating Appalachian culture through theater, music, photography and literary programs. In 2022, the majority of Appalshop’s archive was submerged when the Kentucky River rose 20 feet and flooded most of downtown Whitesburg, Kentucky, USA.

The Living Legacy Initiative is providing secure, climate-controlled storage of the majority of Appalshop's magnetic media archive in Iron Mountain’s cold storage facility, as well as financial support to build a more robust online archive as the items are cleaned and digitized. Additionally, support from the Living Legacy Initiative is allowing Appalshop staff to preserve and save as much of their paper archive as possible.

CyArk uses the power of 3D technology to make the world’s cultural heritage accessible to new audiences and future generations.

CyArk documents, safeguards and provides access to culture through the stories of these places and the people who give them meaning. Through CyArk's interactive Tapestry platform, visitors are able to explore real places in 3D and connect with ancient wonders, national parks and historic sites all online.

With support from the Living Legacy Initiative, CyArk has created an Iron Mountain collection of Tapestry experiences that allow visitors to virtually explore remarkable cultural heritage places around the world. Many of these guided experiences also include educator resources and lesson plans, helping students and teachers discover the stories and perspectives that bring our shared past to life.

National Geographic Society is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of science, exploration, education, and storytelling to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world.

The Society engages an international network of Explorers, diverse communities of changemakers and leaders, as well as strategic partners and collaborators, to pursue innovative solutions to address the world’s most critical issues.

The Living Legacy Initiative is supporting Explorer Victoria Herrmann's project, Preserving Legacies: A Future for our Past. The project provides training and support for community custodians of important natural and cultural heritage sites, equipping them to identify and mitigate threats posed by climate change. This includes creating climate change educational resources, developing an online forum focused on community-inclusive and proactive climate-risk reduction strategies, and capturing the stories of site custodians to share with other practitioners and the public through art and film.

People’s Palace Projects investigates the power of creativity and collaborates with marginalized communities to make change.

Since 2018, People's Palace Projects (PPP) has worked with the Wauja people in the Xingu territory after discovering the destruction of the Sacred Cave of Kamukuwaká. PPP and another partner, Factum Foundation, created a 3D replica of the cave in Madrid, drawing on Wauja ancestral knowledge.

Crozier Fine Arts, an Iron Mountain business, transported the replica from Madrid to the Amazon rainforest. The Living Legacy Initiative funded the Museum and Monitoring Centre that houses the cave, helping share the story of restored cultural heritage and indigenous resiliency globally.

World Monuments Fund (WMF) is devoted to safeguarding the world’s most treasured places to enrich people’s lives and build mutual understanding across cultures and communities.

In the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, a system of traditional public water fountains, known as hitis, has provided water to local communities for over 1,500 years. The hitis serve not only as sources of water for many low-income households, but also as important cultural and religious landmarks for the people of the Kathmandu Valley. Unfortunately, due to neglect and continuing development, only a portion of existing hitis still provide water, while others are completely lost.

The Living Legacy Initiative provided funding to the Hitis Water Heritage Rehabilitation Project which is supporting the rehabilitation of 2 - 4 hitis in the Kathmandu Valley. In addition, the project is developing implementation guidelines for further hiti rehabilitation with the goal of preserving culture and ensuring continued water provision for locals in the face of mounting water insecurity due to climate change.

Cultural Emergency Response prevents the permanent loss of culture and strengthens communities against future crises.

Cultural Emergency Response (CER) coordinates and supports the locally-led protection of cultural heritage during conflicts or disasters. Through the partnership with the Living Legacy Initiative, CER is able to support two projects in danger of heritage loss.

CER is supporting local expertise with the emergency intervention to stabilize and protect the endangered Monastery of Saint Ioulita and Kyriakos in Dhuvjan, Albania—one of the most important surviving examples of post-Byzantine architecture in the Balkans– from imminent structural collapse. CER is also providing support in Pakistan to stabilize and protect historical structures impacted by severe flash flooding.

The Australian Museum (AM) is a place to learn about some of the most pressing environmental and social challenges facing the region.

Underpinning the AM's research is an irreplaceable, international collection of over 22 million objects representing a timeline of the environmental and cultural histories of the Australian and Pacific regions.

The Living Legacy Initiative is supporting the traveling exhibit, "Future Now," which inspires conversation on reducing emissions, using materials well, regenerating nature, and building communities that support values important to people across the spectrum of climate attitudes.

Future Now helps audiences access First Nations concepts of Caring for Country and reinforces the importance and beliefs of protecting Indigenous cultural heritage.

Less than 1% of all historic sites on the National Historic Register of Historic Places in America are associated with Latinx heritage.

Latinos in Heritage Conservation (LHC) is changing that narrative through the Abuelas Project, a digital community archive that pays homage to grandmothers who are their families' culture bearers.

The Living Legacy Initiative funding helped LHC to add powerful oral histories and capture significant historic sites in communities throughout Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. This community-driven effort ensures these invaluable stories and sites are documented for future generations.

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Lincoln Presidential Foundation is creating the “Conceived in Liberty” documentary film.

The “Conceived in Liberty” documentary film and accompanying lesson plans supported by the Living Legacy Initiative highlight Lincoln’s efforts to preserve America’s experiment in self governance and how each generation can complete what Lincoln called the "unfinished work" of our democracy. The film invites Americans to reflect on the ideals of the foundation of our nation and uses narrative storytelling to engage the audience.

The Los Angeles Conservancy (Conservancy) is at the forefront of efforts to recover and rebuild the Altadena community following the devastating wildfires in 2025.

The Conservancy’s mission is to work through education and advocacy to recognize, preserve, and revitalize the historic, architectural, and cultural resources of Los Angeles County. With support from partners, the Conservancy is providing leadership and resources to ensure that historic and cultural assets, both tangible and intangible, are uplifted and considered in Altadena’s long-term recovery.

Through a partnership with the Living Legacy Initiative, the Conservancy is working with local stakeholders to support recovery efforts that honor L.A.’s history, culture, and sense of place to unite communities.

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, The New York Public Library will present the exhibition Declaring America: 1776 and Beyond.

Taking over multiple galleries within the Library's iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in Midtown Manhattan, the exhibition will unpack the complex, diverse, and powerful stories of the American Revolution—from 1776 to today.

The New York Public Library is the repository of some of the nation's most important founding documents, and this exhibition will draw on the extensive archival materials from the Library's collections at the Schwarzman Building, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Library for Performing Arts.

The Living Legacy Initiative is funding the preservation of historical documents that are source materials for the exhibit, along with the creation of educational materials for use by students and teachers in New York City and across the country.