Twenty Years of Readiness, Together

Across the Gulf Coast, artists, culture bearers and arts organizations were confronting extraordinary loss. As communities began the long work of recovery, those of us serving the arts were confronted with a difficult truth: responding after disaster was essential, but it was not enough. We also had to help the field become better prepared for what might come next. That realization changed the work.

That realization changed the work.

South Arts’ response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita led our organization to make disaster preparedness a strategic priority. We saw firsthand how deeply a crisis could disrupt not only buildings and organizations, but livelihoods, creative practices and the cultural fabric of entire communities. We also saw something else: the remarkable strength that becomes possible when people and organizations refuse to navigate those moments alone.

NCAPER grew from that same spirit of collective responsibility.

Over the years, South Arts has been proud to help steward and sustain the coalition, serving as its fiscal sponsor and participating on its Steering Committee. What began as an urgent response to gaps exposed by disaster has grown into a national network committed to something both practical and profound: helping artists and arts organizations prepare, respond and recover.

Along the way, our own work has evolved, too. The lessons following Katrina and Rita helped inspire ArtsReady, South Arts’ online emergency preparedness resource for the arts sector, and a deeper investment in readiness planning. More recently, when Hurricanes Helene and Milton brought devastating consequences to communities across our region, those lessons remained with us. Through the Southern Arts Relief & Recovery Fund, more than 200 professional artists across six states received $168,880 in emergency and recovery support. That work continues through Creative Resilience, a new two-year initiative investing $300,000 in local arts agencies to strengthen disaster readiness and resilience in their communities.

Photo courtesy of Rod Martinez, Florida-based author and South Arts Southern Arts Relief and Recovery Fund awardee following Hurricane Milton, 2024.

The circumstances change. The fundamental lesson does not.

Preparedness is not simply a plan sitting on a shelf. Resilience is not something we should expect artists or organizations to summon on their own after the unimaginable happens. Both are built over time, through relationships, shared knowledge, trusted networks, and the understanding that when crisis comes, someone will show up.

That may be what we value most about twenty years alongside NCAPER.

There is tremendous expertise within this coalition, but there is also tremendous care. Again and again, NCAPER has helped turn individual knowledge into collective capacity, connecting people who understand that protecting our cultural life means protecting the people, practices and places that make it possible.

As NCAPER celebrates its 20th anniversary, South Arts is proud to have been part of this story and deeply grateful to the many colleagues and partners who have shaped it. Twenty years ago, our field recognized a gap and chose to come together to fill it.

Twenty years later, the network is stronger, the knowledge is deeper and the commitment remains.

We cannot know what the next emergency will be.

But we can continue making sure that when it comes, none of us has to face it alone.