FAQ

Preserving Legacies is a global organization that supports heritage stewards with training, tools, resources, and connections to understand climate risk and take locally led action to safeguard the heritage places their communities value. They do this through a variety of programs, including their intensive, application-based Cohort Program and the open access Heritage Adapts! Community of Action.

Preserving Legacies is an organization that runs a variety of programs to support locally led climate adaptation for heritage places and practices based on a three-stage framework—learn, assess, act. Their tentpole programs include the intensive, application-based Cohort Program and the self-guided, open-access Heritage Adapts! community of action.

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The Preserving Legacies Cohort Program is an application-based, three-year program where stewards of selected heritage places receive intensive training, technical support, peer learning, and financial support to understand climate risk, carry out a locally led climate risk assessment, and develop and implement an adaptation action.

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Heritage Adapts! is a coalition-based initiative and community of action spearheaded by Preserving Legacies to democratize and scale climate adaptation beyond those who they can serve through their Cohort Program, and its partners' programs. At it's heart is a free online platform that provides self-paced adaptation training and connects people working across climate and heritage adaptation. It does not provide financial support, but its network often shares opportunities through its discussion boards.

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Cohort Program participants become part of the Heritage Adapts! community as they progress through the program and continue to contribute after graduation.

The Cohort Program is designed for people who work directly with and have a meaningful relationship to a heritage place or landscape. Applicants are typically site managers, heritage custodians, community leaders, rights holders, or others directly responsible for caring for or making decisions about a heritage place.

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Researchers, consultants, NGOs, or other intermediary organizations are generally not encouraged to apply on their own unless they are directly connected to the stewardship of the nominated heritage place.

We welcome a wide range of heritage places.

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These may include historic buildings and districts, archaeological sites, cultural landscapes, sacred places, natural areas with cultural values, living traditions, Indigenous heritage, traditional knowledge systems, and other forms of tangible or intangible heritage. Preserving Legacies deliberately seeks a diverse cohort representing different geographies, climate hazards, knowledge systems, and heritage typologies.

No.

Preserving Legacies seeks a balance between internationally recognized sites and community-led heritage places with deep local significance that may have little or no formal designation. What matters most is the significance of the heritage to the community, the climate risks it faces, and the opportunity for locally led adaptation.

Applicants should be able to demonstrate that climate change presents current and/or projected risks to the heritage place, practice, landscape, or community. These risks might relate to hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, wildfire, sea-level rise, storms, erosion, changing ecosystems, or other climate-related changes.

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You do not need to have completed a climate risk assessment before applying. Learning how to understand and assess those risks is a core part of the Preserving Legacies program.

No.

The program is designed to help participating communities move progressively from understanding climate and heritage, to assessing risk, to identifying and implementing an appropriate adaptation response. Applicants should have a strong interest in taking action, but they should not arrive with an already developed adaptation project.

Each selected site must identify two primary custodians who will participate throughout the program.

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These custodians serve as the main points of contact with Preserving Legacies, participate in required training and activities, coordinate local engagement, travel to the in-person workshop, and help lead the program’s work within their community. There is an opportunity to include additional individuals from your organization as observers or collaborators. 

Yes. Because the program’s core training, discussions, and written materials are currently delivered in English, both primary custodians must have sufficient English proficiency to participate meaningfully in discussions and complete program materials.

Participation is a substantial, approximately three-and-a-half-year commitment. The program progresses through three main stages: building foundational climate and heritage knowledge, leading a locally driven climate risk assessment, and moving from identified risks to adaptation action. Graduates also remain part of the Preserving Legacies global community after completing the formal program.

The program is intentionally substantial because Preserving Legacies invests deeply in each participating site.

During the first year, custodians participate in approximately 18 days of online training spread across the year, regular networking sessions, additional reading and supporting activities, and an approximately 10-day in-person workshop.

The second year is particularly hands-on. In addition to monthly training and peer-learning sessions, custodians design and facilitate community engagement, lead a climate risk assessment process, and document the results. Previous participants have reported spending approximately 150–250 hours over this phase, or an average of roughly 3–5 hours per week.

During the third year, custodians continue regular learning and cohort sessions while developing and implementing a targeted adaptation action.

Applicants should consider carefully whether they can sustain this commitment alongside their existing responsibilities.

Yes.

We strongly encourage organizations to incorporate participation in Preserving Legacies into custodians’ existing professional responsibilities wherever possible.

Yes.

Custodians may participate either as part of their paid professional responsibilities or voluntarily alongside other commitments. Neither arrangement is preferred in the selection process. What matters is whether both custodians have sufficient time, capacity, and organizational or community support to participate fully throughout the program.

Yes.

Applicants should have the authority, institutional support, or community mandate necessary to carry out the program’s activities. Depending on the site, this might mean support from a site-management authority, community leadership, rights holders, Indigenous leadership, government body, or another organization responsible for the heritage place. Applicants should also be prepared to involve relevant community members and stakeholders throughout the climate risk assessment and adaptation process.

No.

Preserving Legacies recognizes that administrative capacity and access to resources vary widely across communities and heritage places. Applicants are not assessed on the size, budget, or sophistication of their organization. Instead, we look at whether applicants have, or could establish with appropriate support, the administrative arrangements necessary to participate responsibly and successfully.

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Applicants will need a practical way to participate in regular online training, meetings, and communication throughout the program.

Preserving Legacies recognizes that access to technology and connectivity varies significantly across communities and does not want these inequalities to determine who can participate. Where possible, the program seeks to identify ways of addressing access barriers with selected sites, including financial assistance. 

No.

Preserving Legacies provides participating custodians with free extensive training, technical expertise, peer learning, and program support. Selected sites also receive financial and technical support to undertake key parts of their climate-risk and adaptation work.

Applicants should, however, be prepared to contribute significant staff or volunteer time and to work closely with their communities throughout the program.

Yes.

Financial support is provided as part of the Preserving Legacies journey for eligible program activities.

Because this funding comes through a U.S.-based nonprofit organization, participating sites must be legally able to receive international charitable funding either directly or through an eligible partner organization. Sites must also be able to provide appropriate organizational, banking, financial, and reporting documentation. Applicants that do not currently have a mechanism for receiving international funding may identify a suitable local institutional or organizational partner.

That does not necessarily prevent you from applying.

Applicants may be able to work through an eligible local organization or institutional partner capable of receiving and administering funds on behalf of the project. The proposed arrangement must comply with applicable U.S. and local laws and the financial requirements of Preserving Legacies and its fiscal sponsor.

Preserving Legacies is a global program and seeks broad geographical representation. However, because the program is supported by U.S.-based partners and funding, all participation and financial support must comply with applicable U.S. sanctions laws and regulations, as well as relevant export controls and charitable funding requirements. These legal requirements may restrict Preserving Legacies from providing funding, services, or other forms of support in certain countries, territories, or circumstances. Eligibility will therefore be reviewed on a case-by-case basis in accordance with applicable U.S. law.

By the end of the first year, custodians will have developed a strong foundation in climate change and heritage. They will better understand the heritage values and attributes they want to safeguard, the climate hazards that may affect them, the scientific, Indigenous, local, and other knowledge systems relevant to their site, and the people who should be involved in future decision-making. They will also have the tools and shared language needed to begin a locally led climate risk assessment.

During the second phase, custodians move from learning about climate risk to assessing it with their communities. They will design and facilitate community engagement, bring together relevant knowledge systems, identify priority climate hazards, explore impacts on heritage values and attributes, assess vulnerability and adaptive capacity, and identify the risks most urgently requiring action. The process culminates in a documented and locally validated Climate Risk Assessment that can support future planning, fundraising, partnerships, management, and decision-making.

The third phase focuses on turning risk assessment into action. With technical guidance, peer learning, and financial support from Preserving Legacies, each site develops and implements a targeted adaptation action responding to a priority risk identified through its assessment. Custodians also build skills in monitoring and evaluation, fundraising and resource mobilization, policy and management integration, and storytelling. By the end of this phase, sites will have both a tangible adaptation proof of concept and a longer-term adaptation pathway to guide future action and investment.

Graduation is not the end of your relationship with Preserving Legacies. Alumni remain connected to a growing global community of heritage custodians responding to climate change. Graduates may have opportunities to mentor future participants, share lessons and tools, contribute to learning resources, convene discussions, support other heritage communities, and bring their experience into national and international conversations about climate change and heritage.

There is no single type of ideal site. Strong applications generally demonstrate:

• a heritage place that is important to its community;
• current or projected climate risks that warrant deeper assessment and action;
• two committed custodians who can participate throughout the program;
• institutional or community support for their participation;
• willingness to engage community members, rights holders, and other relevant stakeholders;
• interest in bringing together scientific, Indigenous, traditional, local, and other relevant knowledge systems;
• sufficient time and capacity to undertake a substantial multi-year process; and
• a clear intention to use the resulting climate risk assessment and adaptation work beyond the lifetime of the program.

Preserving Legacies also considers the composition of the cohort as a whole, seeking diversity across geography, climate hazards, heritage types, and community contexts.

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We are looking for communities that want to build the capacity to lead their own climate adaptation journey. Preserving Legacies is designed to help custodians develop knowledge, relationships, practical tools, and locally grounded processes that can continue shaping decisions long after the formal program ends. We are particularly interested in applicants who see the climate risk assessment and adaptation process as a foundation for longer-term preservation, management, fundraising, policy, community action, and transformational change.

More information about Preserving Legacies, participating heritage places, and previous climate risk assessments is available at heritageadapts.org.

For questions about eligibility or the application process, please contact:

Victoria Herrmann
Director, Preserving Legacies
victoria.herrmann@heritageadapts.org