In the days immediately following the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City tragedy, the Oklahoma City Community Foundation (OCCF) epitomized best practices in the role of a community foundation.

Initially, the Foundation did not believe they had a specific role to play in the aftermath of the disaster, not considering themselves “emergency responders.” But it became obvious that the implications in terms of how people had been affected were much larger than imagined. The services the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army normally provide for people in times of emergency wasn’t required after the first couple of days. People didn’t need shelter. They needed help in rebuilding their lives. OCCF understood the long term needs of those affected by a disaster of this magnitude; children in particular.

In the days and weeks following the bombing, the governor felt it was important to find a way to collect and share information so that everyone involved in the recovery effort would know who the victims were and who the family members of those victims were. The OK City Community Foundation and United Way of Oklahoma City, volunteered to coordinate the database effort. The Foundation created a database that all cooperating organizations had access to.

An additional issue arose when the City received a tremendous amount of money in response to the attack, yet lacked the capacity to manage such funds. Nancy Anthony, and the OK Community Foundation, had an existing relationship with the City and the Mayor, and together they created the Mayor’s Fund. Later, the same occurred with State, and Governor’s office. Again, OCCF managed these funds.

People didn’t need shelter. They needed help in rebuilding their lives. OCCF understood the long term needs of those affected by a disaster of this magnitude; children in particular.

The Community Foundation realized it could be most helpful by providing the infrastructure for the funds to be distributed efficiently. They know who the players are on both sides. They provided case management, with responsibilities divided among the Salvation Army and American Red Cross. A coordinated effort was key.

Not only did the Foundation manage the distribution of recovery dollars, but it also took on the leadership of managing the Case Management function. They were a funder and a provider; focusing on community counseling, social services, as well as education. They worked with children, paid for tutors, mental health counseling, and summer activities — everything to keep the kids engaged and in school.

Further, the partners knew that a case manager was needed for every person/family affected by the bombing. OCCF paid for additional case managers for a 2-3 year period. Remarkably, they still have one of the case managers on a consulting basis, for the past 20 years, offering unprecedented continuity in disaster response.

Following 9/11 attacks, OCCF was sought out by United Way in Washington DC, as well as leaders in New York, to share what was learned in Oklahoma six years earlier, including the forms that were used, how they had set up the database, and so on. Although the scale of the disaster in New York was of a different magnitude, the fundamental issue which dominated both cities was the same: understanding the importance of providing a coordinated effort in responding to the immediate, as well as long term needs of individuals affected by tragic and highly visible events. The model of coordination developed by the Oklahoma City Community Foundation has subsequently been hailed by philanthropic leaders around the country.

The UPS Foundation and the company not only provides financial support, but also, through the Foundation’s Humanitarian Relief and Resilience program, provides support across a broad range of humanitarian crises. This includes emergency preparedness, disaster response and post-crisis recovery through a full array of assistance. This often includes large grants, transportation support, inventory tracking software, and technical experts who advise the foundation’s strategic partners regarding the distribution of food, medical supplies, and other necessary goods as efficiently and rapidly as possible.

UPS works with approximately 20 partner organizations around the world including the American Red Cross, CARE, The Salvation Army, UNICEF, UNHCR and World Food Programme as well as smaller local organizations.

UPSers share their unique logistics capabilities through a skilled volunteer program called the Logistics Emergency Team (LET). These teams provide post-disaster warehouse management support, transportation services, air ramp assistance, and customs clearance services, just to name a few. Over 70-plus UPS volunteers have been trained and are ready to deploy to a disaster area within 72 hours and stay onsite for three to six weeks. The idea behind such a highly skilled team of volunteers is to get life-sustaining supplies to disaster areas within days rather than weeks or months.

In partnership with UNHCR, UPS and its foundation launched the UPS Relief Link program earlier this year. The overall goal of the program is to improve humanitarian supply chain logistics. Relief Link combines the use of handheld scanning devices and identification cards to improve the distribution and tracking of critical supplies, as well as minimize theft. Relief Link allows for the tracking of supplies to their final destinations and provides up-to-date information regarding the items most urgently needed by people in remote areas.

Working on technologies like Relief Link makes it easier for aid workers to keep on top of the supplies they have and what’s still needed, and helps to ensure that those supplies are adequately distributed.

Joe Ruiz oversees the Foundation’s Humanitarian Relief & Resilience Program, and emphasizes preparedness, technology, and coordinating local assistance, as pillars to success. UPS teams utilize local people, local knowledge, and local assets.

For example:

• Joe’s team trained UPS logistics officers to be frontline responders in disasters and then placed them in American Red Cross units working in the U.S. Gulf region following Hurricane Katrina and most recently following severe flooding in South Carolina.
• Logistics Action Teams were established to work with local American Red Cross chapters. Ten teams were placed along the Gulf Coast to work with individual ARC chapters, coordinate transportation and delivery of supplies, helping ARC achieve improved efficiency rates.
• UPS and Toyota worked with New Orleans’ based St. Bernard Project, using Toyota’s productivity model which helped reduce the time to build a home, thereby speeding the return of families affected by Hurricane Katrina..
• Following the 2011 Joplin MO tornado, this model got disaster victims back in their homes within 3.5 years (typical recovery time 5-7 years) Hurricane Sandy – Logistical Action Teams (LATs) provided two drivers per day to transport supplies and assist with recovery efforts.
• Over 70 UPS employees are trained and deployed worldwide (experts in transportation, warehouse management, customs clearance and airport operations). UPS employee-facilitated teams have been deployed to 12-plus disasters since 2008.

The Humanitarian Relief & Resilience Program also supports public-private partnerships that promote preparedness in the U.S. and abroad, including the Resilient America Program led by FEMA and the National Academies of Science and the Saglam Kobi business disaster resilience initiative in Turkey to better prepare small and medium businesses for disaster risks.

UPS also provides support for innovations like the Good360 DisasterRecovery360 donations management system that allows corporate and individual donors to respond to the specific needs of relief agencies and communities recovering from crises.

The Disaster Resilience and Recovery Program includes guidelines and procedures, and these ideas and plans are shared with national and local agencies during other disasters.

In keeping with this open policy, the UPS Foundation gathers with its strategic partners at the beginning of every year to discuss their emergency funds and in-kind budgets. When a disaster strikes, the partners are able to choose whether they want to pull resources from their in-kind budgets or their emergency funds. These flexible and available budgets are just one of the reasons UPS is able to respond so quickly in disaster aftermath.

The UPS Foundation’s model program provides a $10 million annual investment for community safety, logistical expertise, skilled volunteers, and capacity building efforts to UPS partner agencies. This model philanthropic effort enhances community resilience and strengthens preparedness, response and recovery capabilities of local nonprofit organizations.

Launched and chaired by New Jersey First Lady Mary Pat Christie, the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund (HSNJRF) is a non-profit organization committed to the long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts of New Jersey residents and communities. The Relief Fund’s funding priority areas included:

• Housing Assistance & Housing Counseling
• Social Services & Education (including mental health services, food assistance & disaster case management)
• Financial & Legal Counseling
• Small Business Development

Over the last three years the Relief Fund managed six grant cycles, providing nearly $38 million in financial support to 109 non-profit organizations. HSNJRF was a committed partner and captured its experience, impact and insights in a final report available online at www.sandynjrelieffund.org. Some of the Relief Fund’s insights include:

 

Lesson: Look To Rebuild Smart

The Relief Fund and Robin Hood co-funded Rebuilding Union Beach, a home demonstration project that examined the potential of modular construction to provide permanent post-storm housing and help impacted communities rebuild. The primary goal of Rebuilding Union Beach was to build back better using storm-resilient and eco-friendly features to develop an affordable home demolition to construction model. Both modular construction and traditional on-site construction approaches were used to complete 14 homes. While modular construction had a lower price per square foot, the savings were largely offset by expensive truck delivery costs and local crane operations. Traditional on-site rebuilding was impacted by New Jersey’s post-storm construction boom. High demand for contractors resulted in increased labor and materials costs. Additionally, workmanship quality issues and inclement weather caused extended project delays at the traditional construction sites requiring more oversight from the project team.

Ultimately, the modular homes were built faster, cost less, and had fewer issues than the homes built on-site. A comprehensive playbook of the project’s challenges and recommendations is available online at www.RebuildingUnionBeach.org.

 

Lesson: Homeowners Need More Than Financial Assistance

The Relief Fund worked with various organizations to provide financial and housing counseling services, as well as direct financial assistance to impacted residents. Still many New Jerseyans needed more guidance navigating complex federal grant programs and making important decisions related to replacing, relocating or rebuilding their home. In response, HSNJRF supported the Affordable Housing Alliance’s Housing Recovery Resource Center (HRRC). The HRRC provided one-on-one HUD-certified housing counseling services to assist clients with:

• Financial Management & Budget Analysis
• Contractor Fraud & Construction Management
• Foreclosure Mediation & Mortgage Modification
• Navigating New Jersey’s Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation, and Mitigation(RREM) Program

The HRRC also offered bi-weekly workshops and transformed a Winnebago into a mobile office capable of delivering housing counseling services to the communities most in need. While general financial counseling is helpful, the HRRC’s detailed knowledge of local and state rebuilding programs, foreclosure issues and community resources combined with individual financial assessments and recovery specific counseling proved most helpful to homeowners. Additionally, the HRRC was able to help residents with immediate short-term needs before working on a comprehensive, long-term recovery plan. To date, over 800 clients have been helped through the HRRC making it one of the Relief Fund’s most impactful grants.

 

Lesson: Don’t Underestimate Emotional Needs

Mental health issues may take months or years to present after a natural disaster the magnitude of Hurricane Sandy. The trauma caused by a natural disaster often elevates stress and anxiety, strains personal relationships and impairs emotional wellbeing and physical health. Nonprofits learned that proactive community outreach was essential to locating clients in need and formed partnerships with libraries, schools and churches to get the word out about available services and assistance.

Many clients had never sought counseling services prior to Sandy, so mental health providers found it helpful to provide varied and flexible services including peer-to-peer support groups, individual counseling, family counseling, art therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), animal assisted therapy and school-based programs to assist diverse communities with a range of issues. It has taken much longer than anticipated for many of those impacted to return home, causing anxiety, depression, anger and substance abuse, compelling many clients to seek extended services and former clients to return for additional support.

Clients’ concrete needs, such as housing, food and transportation, required counseling programs and professionals to become knowledgeable about various Sandy recovery programs so they could provide needed information and referrals to assist their client’s recovery. Understandably many impacted residents found it difficult to focus on their mental well-being until the uncertainty surrounding their home was resolved and basic needs met.

Another observation was the importance of support for front line service providers such as waitresses, bank tellers and recovery workers. In some communities individuals affected by the disaster were “unloading” on those in the service industries. Small businesses needed counselors to train their staff on how to respond and manage these difficult situations. Additionally, many recovery workers experienced burnout and compassion fatigue over time and benefited from training and support services to prevent and treat these conditions.

The Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund convened multiple conferences for its 109 grantee partners over the last three years to foster collaborations, increase communication, provide capacity building resources and strengthen New Jersey’s non-profit community. The Relief Fund will continue its long-term recovery work through March 2016 and has collected its Sandy experience and insights in its own report. For more information on the lessons learned and impact of the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund, please read the full report.

Johnson & Johnson has a century-long legacy of working with partners who specialize in responding to disasters by addressing short-term and longer-term needs. Immediate action typically includes distribution of disaster relief modules which contain essential Johnson & Johnson products that can help meet emergency medical needs. The Company’s disaster assistance also extends beyond immediate impact, focusing on long-term recovery for devastated communities, especially in restoring and advancing health care in the affected areas.

The Company’s first documented and coordinated disaster relief effort was in 1906, the year of the historic earthquake and fires that devastated San Francisco. Within hours, emergency medical and surgical supplies were loaded on trains bound for San Francisco. Johnson & Johnson provided gauze, sutures, bandages, and other necessities, making the Company the largest donor of medical provisions to the area. Additionally, Johnson & Johnson set up field hospitals to support relief efforts. These actions set into motion a legacy of disaster relief and philanthropic outreach that continues today on a global scale.

In the years following the Company’s initial disaster response in 1906, the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies has responded consistently to major natural and man-made disasters around the world. Our Credo, a one-page document written in 1943 by then Chairman General Robert Wood Johnson outlines the philosophy that guides the Company’s responsibilities to customers, employees, communities, and shareholders. The Company’s responsibility to the community serves as the foundation for its approach to philanthropy.

Johnson & Johnson embraces a mitigation approach to disaster response through preparation.

In the immediate aftermath of any major disaster, Johnson & Johnson works through its key international relief partners and local affiliates to assess and rapidly respond – in many cases within hours – to critical health needs with an array of consumer, pharmaceutical, and medical products. Johnson & Johnson routinely pre-positions disaster relief modules in key global “hot spots” prone to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other catastrophes, working through a network of long-time partners such as Direct Relief, AmeriCares and Heart to Heart. These modules include wound care and infection protection products, hygiene items, sutures, essential medicines, analgesic and orthopaedic products. Johnson & Johnson also supports other partners which provide food, water and health care to those affected by social and civil unrest.

Additionally, the Company offers volunteer leave for employees and supports employee charitable giving to more than 5,000 nonprofits. In the U.S. the match is 2:1 for every dollar an employee donates, and 1:1 for every dollar a retiree donates, up to $10,000 a year.

Johnson & Johnson embraces a mitigation approach to disaster response through preparation. Beyond pre-placing disaster relief modules, Johnson & Johnson has partnered with charitable and medical organizations to ensure that those who serve people at high-risk are better prepared for disasters, resulting in fewer injuries and deaths.

“Disasters inevitably disrupt health care in a community, both for those in need of critical care and those with chronic health conditions,” said Kim Keller of Johnson & Johnson. “It’s vital for communities to get their health care infrastructure back up and running as quickly as possible after a disaster to deal with injuries and to ensure continued care for those who need it. We are proud to have supported the

Disaster Philanthropy Playbook as a resource for philanthropy to help communities return to a healthy state.”

 

The second a disaster strikes, it is a terrible situation; something you cannot imagine. The next few minutes, hours, days, and weeks could be worse. The good news is, with the right collaborative team in place, they can be better.

March 2, 2012 is a day that residents of Southwestern Indiana will most likely remember for decades. A deadly tornado ripped through the small rural landscape, destroying homes, destroying a school, destroying farmland, and destroying lives.

Due to the quick reaction time of countless volunteers, disaster response started immediately. Recovery, on the other hand, can take years. This is where the local community foundations across the region and many other non-profit organizations leapt into action. The Indiana Association of United Ways was granted a large disaster recovery grant from The Lilly Endowment, Inc. for this specific disaster. The previous mentioned organizations convened to determine a fiscal agent for the grant and collected funds from their communities as well as other donated funds from around the country. A steering committee was formed and March2Recovery (M2R) was born. M2R was the official long term recovery organization serving the residents of Clark, Jefferson, and Washington counties in Indiana. It grew out of Southern Indiana Community Organizations Active in Disaster (SINCOAD) and organized using best practices and guidance from National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD.org).

M2R mobilized volunteers and resources in an organized manner to provide assistance to individuals and families who still had unmet needs after seeking insurance, FEMA and other assistance.

Through the collaboration of so many caring people in so many caring organizations, a tragedy was met head on.

M2R provided services to survivors at no cost and without discrimination. Case managers helped families with a recovery plan—assessed needs, verified assistance and advocated for resources.

The March2Recovery Steering Committee met weekly beginning March 8, 2012 (6 days after the disaster) through the spring of 2014 organizing committees, policies and procedures and securing resources in order to provide assistance. Within a few months after the tornado struck, M2R had created an organization structured to handle a multi-million dollar recovery. In total, M2R managed:

• 22,000 volunteers
• 132,000 volunteer hours
• $3,308,787 in donations

[sw_youtube src=”https://vimeo.com/97855677″ width=”560″ height=”315″]

Through the collaboration of so many caring people in so many caring organizations, a tragedy was met head on. No one ever wishes for a disaster in their communities; however, with an organization in place willing to follow tried and true policies and procedures, the disaster can be diminished in a timely manner. March2Recovery helped to restore the quaint and quiet rural landscape that the tornado tried to destroy. They helped to rebuild and repair homes. They helped to rebuild fences and barns to house livestock, they helped to rebuild lives and courage, but most of all M2R restored hope. Hope that yes, a community will pull together, hope that you will have a place to live again, hope that there is an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on, and hope that there is someone that can help if this should ever happen again.