Photographs, oral histories and personal papers held by community archives can preserve stories found nowhere else. A national study announced by the Mellon Foundation examined the organizations doing that work—and the financial pressures threatening their ability to continue.
The study, Powerful but Precarious: Mapping the Landscape of Community-Based Archives, drew on a survey of 336 independent, community-led archives and interviews with more than 20 practitioners. Mellon described it as the first national study of its kind.
These organizations often operate outside universities, libraries and other collecting institutions. They preserve materials from communities whose histories have been excluded from mainstream collections, while providing places where people can encounter their own local and cultural pasts. According to Mellon, some of their holdings are unique and could not be recovered if lost.
Participating archives represented every region of the United States. The foundation reported that 24 percent preserved and shared Black and African American histories, 13 percent LGBTQIA+ histories, 11 percent Hispanic and Latino histories, 9 percent Indigenous and Tribal histories, and 8 percent Asian histories. Other collections documented immigrant and refugee communities, labor movements, artists, musicians and survivors of violence.
The research also found that the organizations did not necessarily share a name for their work. Many respondents used terms such as memory work, cultural preservation or storytelling instead of community-based archive. Some described themselves as accidental archives, having assumed responsibility for collections in response to a need.
A third of participating organizations had operated for more than 25 years. Yet longevity did not eliminate financial uncertainty. Fifty-five percent named a lack of sustainable funding as their greatest challenge, and 85 percent placed it among their top three. Forty-seven percent reported annual budgets below $100,000, while 24 percent depended entirely on volunteers.
Mellon said it had awarded more than $40 million to over 100 community-based archives since 2020. The findings nonetheless describe a field whose historical responsibilities often exceed its resources. For these organizations, preserving American history includes sustaining the people and institutions that keep otherwise irreplaceable collections accessible.