Eastern Iowa area nonprofits, experienced in disasters, examine emergency plans

CEDAR RAPIDS - Cedar Rapids has been all too familiar with disaster.

In order to better brace themselves, about 20 agencies from across Cedar Rapids participated in a daylong workshop Wednesday focused on helping nonprofits prepare for any disaster - natural or man-made - that can hamper their abilities to continue operations.

'It's really about highlighting the need for preparedness in nonprofits,” said Elizabeth Cwik, program officer for the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, which hosted the workshop in partnership with United Way of East Central Iowa. 'Nonprofits are built to serve, so they need to be prepared for that as well.”

The workshop, held at the Community Foundation offices, 324 Third St. SE, was led by an emergency preparedness consultant from San Francisco who discussed elements of disaster planning, such as staff readiness and utilizing neighborhood resources.

Most importantly, Cwik said it showed agencies how to 'continue what they do to serve the community when they themselves are impacted by disaster.”

Lessons learned from the floods of 2008 and 2016 were on the minds of the attendees and organizers, particularly as organizations considered how to improve their plans.

'We do have an emergency action plan and a disaster plan in place,” said Megan Isenberg, a program manager for Jane Boyd Community House, who attended the workshop. 'How can we better plan for something we weren't sure was going to happen? Although we do have a plan, we're looking at if it's the best plan or if there's something we can do differently.”

In 2008 and 2016, Isenberg said Jane Boyd faced a challenge with its staff in key response roles that were personally impacted by the floodwaters.

Isenberg hoped to bring a solution to this issue from the workshop.

'When they're in roles for response, but they have to attend to things personally, what's that plan B for us?” Isenberg said. 'When we've had to use (a disaster plan) and experience that, we learn what else we could have thought about. This came up that we weren't thinking of or prepared for in our original plan.”

Wednesday's event was presented through Resilient America Roundtable, a program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that began in 2014 to help cities across the country build resilience, or ability to recover quickly from a catastrophe, said Charlene Milliken, program officer for the National Academies.

The Resilient America Roundtable program is based on a 2012 study by the National Research Council that found key strategies to build a community's resilience, including partnerships with community stakeholders, understanding of the risk, ways to measure resilience and sharing of information, according to a news release from the organization.

'Out of those four recommendations, the Resilient America Roundtable program was born,” Milliken said.

Cedar Rapids is among four pilot communities chosen for the program. Since 2014, organizers have been working directly with stakeholders and leaders in all agencies, including governmental, not-for-profit and small businesses.

Milliken said organizers have been visiting the pilot communities - which also include Charleston, S.C.; Seattle; and Tulsa, Okla. - every three or four months to host workshops and training sessions.

Resilient America Roundtable organizers said they hope to focus the next workshop on preparing small businesses in Cedar Rapids. Details have yet to be announced.

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