Reflecting on 2025 with hope for the future

Dear friends,

Hope is a familiar word, yet it often evokes many different images and emotions. Hope can feel fleeting and hard to grasp, especially in the face of disasters, making it all the more important to lift it up whenever and wherever we find it.

2025 has been marked by loss in many corners of the world. Devastating wildfires swept across Southern California, showing how quickly disasters can upend lives. Flooding then inundated communities in South Africa and Texas, followed by relentless monsoon and typhoon rains that overwhelmed parts of South Asia and Southeast Asia. Hurricane Melissa battered Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, leaving thousands of families in need of support as they rebuild. An earthquake struck Afghanistan, a deadly landslide claimed lives in Sudan, and most recently, Cyclone Ditwah brought new hardship to communities in Sri Lanka.

Amid the devastation and trauma that disasters wreak, hope can quickly become another casualty. Yet through our work educating funders, advising partners and supporting long-term equitable recovery, we see every day how critical it is to nurture and protect hope. It sustains communities, guides philanthropy and fuels progress.

This year, our sense of hope has been tested many times, yet it remains steady and unshaken.

We’ve seen it in Western North Carolina, where one year after Hurricane Helene, residents are not simply rebuilding structures, they are building lasting ecosystems of support. Communities are collaborating to share resources and to create centers that offer a range of services from a food pantry to rental assistance to childcare. In Bangladesh, we learned about the development of salt-tolerant crops that allow farmers to grow crops in fields damaged by salinization.

In Southside Chicago, youth and young adults are being trained to provide basic emergency response in their neighborhoods and connect with older adults to clean and restore flood-damaged homes, developing workforce and leadership skills as well as civic engagement and belonging that spans generations and meets critical needs. And in Poland, we saw Ukrainian refugees bolstered by support groups, learning Polish to navigate life in their country of asylum, while still finding space to honor their heritage, traditions and connection to home.

All reminders that seeds of hope grow in places that offer dignity, support independence and protect livelihoods. And all show that communities can recover stronger and thrive after a disaster, and when infused with listening, care and funding, hope shifts from aspiration to attainable.

In every disaster, the people closest to the impact are the people closest to the solution. With your generosity, CDP supports their efforts with flexible, equitable and sustained funding, when and where it is needed most.

Thank you for being a part of this work. Together, we are building a future where recovery is not only possible, it leads to stronger, more resilient communities.

As we close out the year, we are deeply grateful and infinitely hopeful for what we can achieve together in the year ahead.

With appreciation,

Patty McIlreavy, President & CEO
Tiffany Benjamin, Board Chair
Center for Disaster Philanthropy