Neighbor to Neighbor: Recommendations from CBOs for CBOs on Natural Disaster Recovery

“We are not a response organization. Maybe we should be, and maybe one day the community asks that of us. But right now, that’s not our space. We make an impact in other ways”.

– Guadalupe Fernandez, Policy & Partnerships Manager at Bayou City Waterkeeper

Lead with what your organization already does well. Identify what you do and don’t do to prevent overstretching and mission drift. It helps to be clear on what your organization’s strengths and skillsets already are. For example, an organization dedicated to increasing resident access to clean water has the foundation to focus on clean water access during a disaster.

“We went into disaster mode and asked ourselves, ‘How can we help our residents right now?’”

– Carmen Cavezza, Senior Manager of Climate Justice Programs at CEER

While it’s important to maintain the core of your work, expect your organization’s role to shift once disaster hits. After three hurricanes in 2024, Coalition for Environmental Equity & Resilience (CEER) based in the greater Houston region, shifted from offering weatherization application support to helping residents submit FEMA applications.

Think broadly: community emergency response teams (CERTs), social service agencies, emergency management offices, utility providers, mutual aid networks, community centers, churches, schools, and other CBOs.

This rolodex helps organizations point people to resources quickly. For example, during Winter Storm Yuri, Cavezza of CEER relied on a WhatsApp group coordinated by Houston in Action, where local organizations and leaders crowdsourced resources and shared requests for help in real time. 

Dive Deeper with this Resource: Participatory Asset Community Mapping or Asset Mapping

Proactive relationship building will position you to act faster when in a crisis. For examples, Bayou City Waterkeeper had a direct line to staff at the local Public Works department. During boil water advisories, they’d text the water director to find out what was happening and then pass that information to their network. That trusted relationship was built during ordinary, non-disaster work and proved useful during disasters. 

Dive Deeper with this Resource: River Network’s Building Blocks of Trust: Creating Authentic and Equitable Relationships Between Community Organizations and Water Utilities

Local or regional COADs (Community Organizations Active in Disaster) like this one active in Southeast Wisconsin or VOADs (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters) are networks of nonprofits, government agencies, contractors, and institutions that coordinate response during disasters. Joining one creates a clearer understanding of roles and responsibilities before a disaster. 

Example: Go Austin Vamos Austin (GAVA) is part of the Austin Resilience Network, where CBOs and city agencies work together to respond during disasters. The city shares instructions and updates, like when resilience hubs open, and GAVA disseminates that to community leaders who will inform their neighborhoods. It works both ways: GAVA brings community needs and updates back to the Network. 

Approaching government relationships with a spirit of reciprocity and collaboration, alongside accountability, yields more productive partnerships.

Example: Bayou City Waterkeeper, working across greater Houston, actively advocates at the state and federal levels for resources and funding that would benefit the city, which has built a track record of goodwill. This foundation creates room for them to challenge the city directly when necessary. “When we have to be critics, it’s in a loving way,” shared Fernandez.

Example: Frances Acuña at Go Austin/Vamos Austin (GAVA) shifted her approach from accusatory to collaborative after realizing it yielded better results. Instead of saying “you haven’t done this work,” she reframed it as a shared challenge: “We went through this and we didn’t have these things. We want to make sure that next time it happens, we can work together so we’ll be better prepared. This is what we can offer, but we need your support.’”

Don’t lose time trying to win over those who won’t budge. As Cavezza of CEER shared, “Know who, no matter what you do, they’ll turn you down”. Instead, focus your relationship-building on a narrower range of potential and active supporters.

Dive Deeper with this Resource: The Spectrum of Support tool helps organizations engage strategically by creating a spectrum of where public officials and entities stand.

Skills training builds community capacity for disaster resilience. For example, during three consecutive years, West Street Recovery recruited 50 community members to receive urban wilderness first aid training. The goal was that when the next disaster hit, residents would have the skills to help each other. Leadership development matters too – like CEER’s flagship climate ambassador program, which trains community members to educate and advocate for local water equity and climate resilience.

“Can you still be getting volunteers to come four months after the disaster? Because people are still going to need help.”

– Ben Hirsch, West Street Recovery

Disasters bring waves of volunteers, but the challenge lies in sustaining that momentum months later when community needs are just as acute. Setting up volunteer recruitment systems and defining specific roles before they are needed allows organizations to quickly plug volunteers into clear, meaningful work from day zero, which helps sustain longer-term support.

Discuss early on how work will change in “blue sky” and “gray sky” times, and consider how to support one another. For example, BCW suggests building in flexibility for staff to take time off to help neighbors or their own households and developing roles that can be filled by those who are less directly impacted, like putting staff who still have electric power on call to reshare information resources that come their way.

In communities that have been underserved and harmed, trust in unfamiliar organizations is thin – especially in moments of crisis. When hesitant community members need reassurance that a resource is safe, the messenger often matters more than the message. Hyperlocal partners like churches or community centers can serve as trusted vehicles for amplifying information and resources.

Example: Ben Hirsch from West Street Recovery shared how leveraging trusted messengers was essential for encouraging community members to use the FEMA digital application. “Doris would tell her people [it was] safe. They have a connection and trust because they go to church together or their family knows each other… which is way better than me telling them.” 

Example: Carmen Cavezza from CEER described a situation where community members would become unreachable to contractors trying to follow up after signing up for weatherization and utility assistance programs. “If they don’t know you, they’re not going to answer the phone, no matter what you have to offer. And if they end up answering the phone, they are going to distrust the message”. Building in warm hand offs when connecting community members to outside organizations can help overcome trust barriers.

Dive Deeper with this Resource: The Community-Centered Solutions Toolkit helps organizations understand how to build community trust.

No single communication channel can reach everyone. Layer multiple modes of contact to reach as many people as possible, from social media to radio to doorknocking. Communication channels that rely on the internet often fail during disasters due to power outages and damage to telecommunications infrastructure.

Example: Bayou City Waterkeeper shared that during a winter storm, their city went without power for a week and yet boil water advisory notices were still being issued online, leaving many people unaware of the alerts. Plan for these disruptions – it can be as low-tech as developing relationships with contacts in local radio stations willing to share your messages or as high-tech as setting up community internet.

Translating government resources into plain language for the community is an important need during disaster relief and recovery. As Frances Acuña from GAVA put it, “Sometimes people assume that the community has the information because it’s all over the city’s social media and website. But the reality is, it can be difficult to navigate and understand”.

Joe Fitzgerald of Milwaukee Water Commons shared how during the August 2025 floods, residents went out in canoes to rescue neighbors from flooded homes, clear storm drains, and help drivers stuck in flooded streets. “Neighbors jumped in and supported one another”. CBOs can lend their structures, capacity, and credibility to multiply the impact of what neighbors are already doing. This can look like connecting community networks to supplies or funding.

CBOs can also help document and map these emergent networks after they arise.

Example: Asheville, NC’s Resilience Hub mapping project shows how capturing what’s already working on the ground can offer these community networks more recognition and investment over time.

Assume that if someone shows up, they need help. West Street Recovery put this approach into practice through their hub houses, where community members receive small amounts of cash assistance without intensive vetting or having to prove they need help.

Example: ”If you show up at my Hub house, I assume that you need $100. I don’t know if you earn $2K or $60K a year. But if you walk here, you probably need $100” shared Ben of WSR. That approach helped WSR build trust and community members were more willing to engage with them.

Minimize bottlenecks that can slow down aid delivery. This can look like empowering rapid response volunteers to distribute resources – like food, water, and small amounts of cash – without having to check in for approval on each request. 

Trying to access government resources like FEMA assistance or home repair programs can be a challenging and frustrating experience, especially for people encountering them for the first time. Simply sharing applications for programs is likely not enough. Consider how to support community members in accessing these resources, like building in time to help less tech-savvy people create accounts or fill out online forms. 

Example: During Hurricane Beryl, WSR proactively reached out to impacted community members and encouraged them to apply for FEMA assistance. When people reported that their applications had been denied, WSR tracked those instances, flagged denials to legal partners so they could assist with appeals, and built a spreadsheet tracking 180 applicants, following up with them every two weeks. 

Resilience hubs don’t have to look the same for every organization or community. CBOs have found creative ways to develop hub capacity that reflects their available resources and community context.

Example: Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) uses a tiered model that acknowledges that hubs can grow over time, from offering outreach and education, to providing direct support like first aid, to eventually offering emergency overnight shelter.

Example: West Street Recovery (WSR) developed “hub houses” that equip neighborhood leaders to turn their own homes into emergency resource centers, distributing solar panels and batteries, rescue equipment and basic medical supplies during disasters or power outages.

Dive Deeper with this Resource: Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) developed a Hub Model Guide that helps communities think through how to develop resilience hub capacity, from initial planning to providing emergency services during a disaster. Access it here. 

A hub needs to be well-trusted and well-utilized, so building resident connections with the location through day-to-day programming when there’s no active disaster is key.

As Rachael Boyce, Climate Justice & Resilience Manager of Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) put it, “If you put a bunch of chairs in a gym with AC, no one’s going to go because they’ve never spent any time there. You’d be more likely to stay at home”. Community gardens, seed libraries, English as Second Language (ESL) classes, and DIY weatherization workshops are all ways to build that connection. 

A hub that isn’t accessible to the community’s most vulnerable members isn’t fully doing its job. Identify vulnerable populations in the “blue sky” planning process and build in accessibility – like language, financial, mobility, and transportation – to address barriers from the beginning.

Long-term recovery groups (LTRGs), organized among CBOs, direct service providers, and government agencies, fill critical gaps and create long-term structure for needs that extend beyond the emergency response phase. They improve coordination and communication among participating organizations and help people who fell through the cracks get the support they need, including those who were deemed ineligible for state or federal assistance.

Intentionally cultivating reflection spaces with partners to assess what happened during a disaster can lead to better outcomes long-term, shifting organizations from reacting to being proactive.

Example: After the August 2025 floods, Milwaukee Water Commons (MWC) participated in the Milwaukee Environmental Justice Alliance. “We asked questions like ‘What did we see? What infrastructure needs to exist to stay connected?” shared Fitzgerald of MWC. These conversations gave organizations across the network the opportunity to discuss what they were doing, what they weren’t doing, who was filling gaps, what they were seeing in their community, and identify possibilities for deeper collaboration.