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California Cultural and Historical Endowment
Welcome to the California Cultural and Historical Endowment!
The California Cultural and Historical Endowment (CCHE) was established in 2004 to fund projects through a competitive grant process to tell the stories of California as a unified society and of the many groups of people that together comprise historic and modern California.
The funding for the Capital Projects is from voter-approved bonds from the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act of 2002, more commonly known as Proposition 40.
$122 million from the Proposition 40 funds was allocated to CCHE to distribute to government entities, non-profit organizations, and Indian tribes through a competitive grant application process.
The CCHE Board recently reserved funding for successful applicants in the third and final scheduled round of funding. Results of CCHE Round Three
At this time, CCHE does not anticipate additional funding for future rounds. Should additional funds become available, an announcement will be made on this website.
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CCHE Board Meeting |
Introduction
Background
Who We Are
Members of the Endowment Board
What We Do
Staff Roster
How to Reach the Endowment
Information about Proposition 40 Grant Awards
Proposition 40
California Cultural and Historical Endowment Act (AB 716) pdf version or html version
"Golden Tales of the Golden State" – by Dr. Kevin Starr, State Librarian Emeritus of California
To announce the beginning of this new entity in state government, Dr. Starr wrote an op-ed piece that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on June 29, 2003.
Introduction
Every civilization defines itself in part by its past, and an understanding of its past helps determine its basic values and future aspirations. Understanding of the past is strengthened and deepened by contact with the buildings, physical places, and artifacts of earlier times. Through learning this past, our young and future generations come to better understand the society in which they live and to better understand themselves.
As California’s built environment becomes remarkably similar throughout the state, it is left to the natural environment and the structures of the past to give a unique sense of place to our communities. Preserving these structures is becoming increasingly important as a way of preserving community identity.
The buildings, other structures, and artifacts that embody California’s past are in escalating danger of being redeveloped, remodeled, renovated, paved, excavated, bulldozed, modernized, and lost forever.
For history to be part of our lives, and to preserve community identities, we must include history in our daily lives. This can be accomplished through creative reuse of historic structures in our older commercial districts and inner cities.
California has one of the most diverse populations on earth, and its cultural and historic preservation efforts should reflect that fact. We need to make greater efforts to document the cultural traditions and historic roles of California’s Latino, African-American, Asian and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and Jewish populations. It is also important to seek out and tell the stories of the many other groups of peoples with uniquely identifiable cultures and histories. In this era of cultural homogenization, it is essential to preserve the physical and cultural history and folklife of these many groups, who have made important contributions to California’s history, development, and identity.
Background
The study of history once focused largely on the actions and works of the wealthy, powerful, noble, brilliant, or famous persons. More recently, historians have tried to increase understanding of how more ordinary people lived and thought. California’s historic preservation efforts should allow its citizens and visitors to experience something of the physical world of both the extraordinary and the mundane.
California has preserved sites important to its prehistoric and later Native American people. It has preserved great and beautiful structures of the 19th century. But California’s history does not end there. The state must now consciously preserve selected remnants of the 1930s, of California’s role in World War II, as well as representative sites and structures that were culturally or economically important during the 1950s, 1960s, and, in some cases, even more recently.
Traditionally, public funds to preserve and interpret California’s historic and cultural heritage have been scarce. Recently, the voters have approved bond funds with significant funding for historic and cultural resources. Proposition 12, passed in 1999, included $10 million for the Office of Historic Preservation to issue grants for historic preservation projects. In 2002, the voters approved the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks, and Coastal Protection Act of 2002 (Proposition 40), which included $267 million for historic and cultural resource preservation.
Proposition 40 specified that the $267 million was to fund a broad range of cultural and historic resource preservation programs. It called for a program for the “acquisition, development, preservation, and interpretation of buildings, structures, sites, places, and artifacts that preserve and demonstrate culturally significant aspects of California’s history and for grants for these purposes. Proposition 40 funds are to be used to support projects that help to preserve and demonstrate:
- Culturally significant aspects of life during various periods of California history including architecture, economic activities, art, recreation, and transportation;
- Unique identifiable ethnic and other communities that have added significant elements to California’s culture;
- California industrial, commercial, and military history including the industries, technologies, and commercial activities that have characterized California’s economic expansion and California’s contribution to national defense; and
- Important paleontologic, oceanographic, and geologic sites and specimens.
In September 2002, Governor Davis signed The California Cultural and Historical Endowment Act, which established the California Cultural and Historical Endowment in the California State Library (AB 716, Firebaugh, Chapter 1126, Statutes of 2002). The Act requires the Endowment to use Proposition 40 funds to make grants and loans to public agencies and nonprofit organizations to protect and preserve California’s cultural and historic resources.
In August 2003, the state budget authorized the Endowment to spend $128 million of Proposition 40 money to carry out its programs. (The other $139 million of Proposition 40 funds have been spent on projects specified in Proposition 40 and the Governor’s Opportunity Grants authorized by AB 716.)
Who We Are
The California Cultural and Historical Endowment is a new and unprecedented entity within state government. It is devoted to the cause of telling California’s history as experienced by the many diverse peoples of California. The Endowment will help the citizens of California to strengthen and deepen their understanding of the state’s history, its present society, and themselves.
The Legislature intended for the Endowment to raise the profile and scope of California’s historic and cultural preservation program, and perhaps eventually to become a stand-alone entity in state government without ties to any existing agency or department, yet subject to the authority of the Governor. The State Library will house the Endowment during its “incubation.”
Members of the Endowment Board
The Endowment operates under the direction of a Board made up of the following members:
The State Librarian, Susan Hildreth, who serves as Chair
The Secretary of the Resources Agency, Mike Chrisman (Represented by Bryan Cash)
The Director of the Department of Finance, Michael C. Genest (Represented by Anne Sheehan)Three members appointed by the Governor:
Mr. James Swinden, of Laguna Beach
Ms. Suzanne Deal Booth, of Los Angeles
Mr. Robert V. "Bobby" McDonald, of Anaheim HillsTwo members appointed by the Senate:
Ms. Betsy Reeves, of Fresno
Ms. Carmen Martinez, of OaklandTwo members appointed by the Assembly:
Ms. Georgette Imura, of Sacramento
Mr. Jon F. Vein, of Los AngelesIn addition, two members of the Senate and two members of the Assembly will meet with the Endowment and participate in its activities. Senator Don Perata and Senator Christine Kehoe will represent the Senate. Assemblymember Hector De La Torre and Assemblymember Karen Bass will represent the Assembly.
What We Do
The Endowment’s mission is to tell the stories, and document the contributions, of the many groups of peoples that make up modern California. These groups include Latinos, African-Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Jewish persons, Europeans, and others with uniquely identifiable cultures.
The Endowment will fund historic and cultural preservation projects. In addition to preserving historic resources commonly associated with California (the Missions, artifacts from the Gold Rush, nineteenth-century buildings), the Endowment will also fund projects that tell the parts of California’s story that are absent or underrepresented in existing historical parks, monuments, museums, and other facilities. It will strive to achieve careful balance, geographically, among communities and organizations of large and small size, and among diverse ethnic groups.
The Endowment will administer several programs required by AB 716. It will develop and implement competitive grant and/or loan programs using the Proposition 40 bond funds. It will conduct statewide public hearings in developing these programs. It will also conduct studies and surveys to assess the state’s cultural and historic resource preservation programs, as well as access to and interpretation of those resources. It will make recommendations for additional steps that should be taken to better preserve and administer cultural and historic resources efficiently and effectively. To the degree that funding is available, it will establish a program to assist and enhance the services of California’s museums and other institutions that conduct cultural projects reflective of underserved communities.
How to Reach the Endowment
Mimi Morris
Interim Executive Officer
California Cultural and Historical Endowment (CCHE)
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 942837
Sacramento, CA 94237-0001
(916) 653-1330
Toll Free (866) 311-2178
FAX: (916) 651-9871
Or, send us an email:
endowment@library.ca.gov
(Documents in PDF format can be viewed with the Adobe Acrobat Reader.)