Community Readiness and Resilience Toolkit
Step 5: Take Action
Step 5: Take Action
Step 1
Get Started
Step 2
Identify Concerns and Gather Information
Step 3
Assess Vulnerability, Understand Risks
Step 4
Develop Resilience Strategies
Step 5
Take Action
Step 6
Monitor, Adjust, and Maintain Your Plan
Step 5
In this step, you will work with the core team, local and regional organizations, and municipal leadership to confirm buy-in, chart the path forward, and implement resilience strategies developed in Step 4.
Guiding Questions
- Which sectors need to be involved to integrate resilience strategies into your community’s work?
- Do you foresee any potential barriers to implementing the resilience strategies you identified in Step 4?
- Are there funding avenues available to you that could support this work? Are there any on the horizon?
- What new approaches to coordination or governance may be needed?
- Who will take the lead for each of the key actions?
- What three actions can be taken now to increase community resilience?
- What resilience strategies will add the most value and be the easiest to implement?
Checklist for Step 5
- Activity 1: Articulate Your Roadmap to Resilience
- Activity 2: Identify Potential Funding Avenues
- Activity 3: Convene a Community Resilience Implementation Team
- Activity 4: Implement Resilience Strategies
Step 5, Activity 1: Develop your implementation plan
In this activity, you will develop and define your implementation plan to provide you with a clear understanding of what lies ahead.
Tips
- Return to this activity throughout implementation. Revisit the timeline you determine for individual strategies and actions and the broader timeline necessary across documents for resilience planning in your community.
- Think long-term. It is important to keep in mind that your implementation plan timeline will extend over a long period of time. Some resilience strategies and actions will have clear completion dates while others will be ongoing.
- Utilize work completed by other organizations/states: See the California Adaptation Planning Guide and local case studies.
Why?
An implementation plan (pages 59-63) builds upon the work completed in the previous steps and helps to establish a clear, equitable, and actionable path towards the implementation of resilience strategies and actions in your community. Depending on the approach and goals of your current planning process, this step may be focused on a particular hazard or satisfying the needs of a particular planning process such as the Pre-disaster Recovery Plan [Navigate to Step 4 Activity 3].
When?
This activity can begin in conjunction with finalizing Step 4, Activity 3, and should be revisited consistently in the following steps and activities. This is generally not an activity that has a defined start and end date. Resilience planning should be ongoing.
How does my community do this?
Draft your implementation plan. This process can be as detailed as you would like. For example, you could create and publish a standalone document highlighting the specific steps your team should take for implementation. Or, your team could work from the existing spreadsheet you have already created (see the workbook).
Determine the timeframe for implementing actions. Short-term or immediate actions might include ones that can be done quickly, for a low cost, or as part of routine operations; whereas long-term or ongoing actions (and strategies) might require changes to by-laws, planning documents, or a dramatic increase in a department's operating budget. To determine timelines for short- and long-term strategies/actions, your resilience team should consider the specific circumstances in, and characteristics of, your community as well as the specific shocks and stressors you’ve identified in previous steps. Likewise, within specific plans, you will want to include resilience strategies/actions that have already begun but will be expanded to address the impacts that have been identified in this process. Keep in mind that short-term strategies/actions may also have to be supplemented by longer-term and ongoing strategies/actions.
Identify windows of opportunity for action. Assess your resilience planning timeline and determine which projects need to be (or can be) implemented first, when relevant plans and documents will need to be updated or drafted, and what funding opportunities you have available to you now (and in the near future). This allows you to better understand when you will need to make key decisions and how these decisions will fit together over time. Consider the following questions:
What priority projects should be implemented first?
What funding do you have available to you currently? Are there potential funding opportunities to help you with implementation in the near future?
Are there additional plans that need to be updated in the future that align with your priority resilience strategies?
Step 5, Activity 2: Identify Potential Funding Sources
In this activity, you will identify and pursue potential funding streams available at the local, regional, state, and national levels to implement priority resilience strategies and more broadly support resilience work in your community.
Why?
Regardless of implementation procedures or planning mechanisms used, resilience strategies must be funded. Sources of funding and financing can include local general funds, bonds, taxes, assessments, fees, grants, private sector partnerships or investments, non-profit grants, and partnerships, among others.
When?
Funding resources may be identified during Step 4 while selecting and evaluating potential resilience strategies; however, this is also likely to be an ongoing process as new funding opportunities become available over the lifespan of the relevant plans and projects.
How does my community do this?
Go to the CRO funding page to learn more. DOLA and the CRO have many funding resources to support your planning and implementation work.
Step 5, Activity 3: Convene a Community Resilience Implementation Team
In this activity, you will build off of your original core planning team and stakeholders to convene local and regional organizations, leaders, and community members to take ownership of, and implement, resilience strategies developed and prioritized in Step 4.
Tips
- Center equity in implementation. Meaningful engagement with frontline community members and organizations will enhance the effectiveness of your work. Rely on strong community leaders for their local expertise, to inform implementation considerations, and as potential gatekeepers. Don’t underestimate the importance of having local champions on your Implementation Team; look to informal local leaders who are trusted in your community as well as individuals who are enthusiastic about resilience and skilled people from various departments to join the Team. Make sure at least one member, ideally more, is skilled at community engagement and can continue to lead on those efforts.
- Foster regional partnerships. Consider working closely with other communities in your region. For example, if your community relies on the county for critical services, consider bringing in a county staff person to the team, even if it isn’t a county-level plan.
Why?
Implementation of community resilience strategies requires dedicated support from a team. It also requires support from leadership and community buy-in. When thinking about the composition of your Community Resilience Implementation Team, consider involving the same representative groups including the core planning team, advisory committee, and various community stakeholders; however, it is likely essential to expand your outreach to include additional community groups, businesses, departments, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, and more.
When?
This process should be ongoing as you implement resilience strategies, identify new funding streams, and update plans as needed.
How does my community do this?
Define what you will need, who needs to be involved, and brainstorm a list of potential individuals to fill implementation roles. In addition to your department and staff, include community members that you interacted with at engagement events and those individuals that exhibited local expertise, knowledge, and enthusiasm during previous steps of the planning process. The size of your Implementation Team is generally dependent on the size of your community and the number of strategies you have developed. Bigger is not always better, as a large implementation team can be difficult to manage. Take advantage of the Implementation Team template in the workbook to help organize your team.
Determine the objectives and scope of work for the implementation team. Before you invite people to join your Implementation Team, you will need to define the objectives and scope of the Implementation Team itself. You will also need to define the responsibilities of each member as well as the general term served by each member (could be from 1-3 years, depending on your resilience goals and needs). Providing clear responsibilities upfront is essential for long-term participation and successful implementation efforts.
Select and invite implementation team members. Review the list of potential individuals and select and invite members of your team. Additional key questions to consider include the following.
Are they willing and able to participate?
What is the capacity of your core implementation team?
Do they have the knowledge and understanding to complete their potential role?
How long have they been in the community? Do they have strong existing ties to your community?
What is their current job description and what additional responsibilities are they managing?
What local knowledge or expertise do they bring to the team?
Do they represent a diverse cross-section of your community?
Step 5, Activity 4: Implement Resilience Actions
In this activity, you will work with local and regional partners, municipal and county decision-makers, community organizations, businesses, and others, to implement resilience actions.
Tips
- Don’t forget about the public. As you carry out the implementation process, be sure to continue to seek public input, involvement, and engagement. Reaching out to individuals who are willing to help spread the message and enhance public awareness on these issues can be helpful to engage the community, especially those who may not typically engage in these processes.
- Effectively communicate your progress. Report back to the community frequently throughout the process as you hit “newsworthy” milestones. It is important to celebrate success as it happens. Make sure people know how they can be involved and help implement the plan. This can be done through education and outreach events and various programs designed to help them make progress in their own homes and businesses.
- Leverage existing work. Consider how to best leverage existing work already happening across your community and consider implementing actions that already likely have support. With small and early “wins” under your belt, you will be able to demonstrate the ability to succeed and the potential for the remainder of resilience strategies; this will, in turn, strengthen community support for your efforts.
Why?
Resilience planning does not end with a published plan or framework. On the contrary, it is just the beginning. Now that you have prioritized actions, developed a timeline for implementation, and put together your implementation team, you are finally ready to take action! You will want to ensure that the implementation of resilience actions is effective, and continues to be effective, for your community. Having an established plan will help set you up for long-term success.
When?
The duration of this activity will vary between communities and depend greatly on the timeframe for the implementation of different strategies. For strategies that are easier to implement, it may only take a few weeks or months, but for longer-term strategies that require more planning and resources, it may take years to implement.
How does my community do this?
Refine the implementation details and indicators of success. Review the draft implementation details and indicators of success identified in Step 4 Activity 2 and work with your implementation team to refine them. The defined criteria and metrics can be similar across all actions or you can choose to define different ones based on the action itself. For example, you will likely evaluate education or outreach action differently than you would an infrastructure project. Success will mean different things to different communities throughout Colorado. Do your best to assign at least one relevant indicator of success for each resilience action. The old adage that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is certainly true for building resilience. Consider utilizing the Action Implementation Template in the workbook.
Note: the CRO has created a list of indicators that Colorado communities can use to create a local baseline, analyze local priorities and goals, and monitor their progress. This approach enables you to select indicators according to local priorities and data availability. For more information, see the indicators.
Establish effective communication pathways within your implementation team. Communication with individuals involved in the implementation process will play a significant role in the success of your resilience strategies. While this depends on the specific strategies you are planning to implement, a variety of information should be communicated to your Council and municipal staff, including (but not limited to):
Emergency service updates and preparedness plans;
Changes to by-laws, zoning requirements, and codes;
New plans or guides; and
New land-use regulations.
Identify training that will help streamline the implementation process. The implementation phase requires a diverse array of stakeholders and skills. Training for staff, elected officials, or key stakeholders can help add to both your community’s skill set and knowledge base as well as contribute to successful implementation. Some training topic examples can include new standards or codes of practice; benefits of a given resilience action; new technologies that may be used in new infrastructure or the replacement of existing infrastructure; and rationale behind policy changes or amendments to existing plans.
Implement resilience actions. It is time to implement actions you already have funding for. As you have already determined the priority short-term actions, you can begin to implement them by reaching out to the people, organizations, or departments responsible for implementing them. This can be done by members of your Implementation Team for more discrete actions, but in some instances, subcommittees may be necessary to address the more complex or long-term actions. You can also organize subcommittees by strategy and may provide more opportunities to hear from invested community members. Implementation mechanisms will vary depending on the type of resilience action or strategy. Implementation is key to many planning efforts, including the pre-disaster recovery planning process [see Step 4, Activity 4].
Community Call out: El Paso Regional Resiliency Framework
A resilience strategy identified in the El Paso Regional Resiliency Framework indicated that the community “Evaluate and revise zoning and building codes and the development review to create a foundation for resilient housing.” The specific action that the community implemented was to “improve existing regional building and maintenance codes and local zoning ordinances to support resiliency and sustainability in the region.” Actions come in a myriad of shapes and forms: from education and outreach programs, to resilient affordable housing projects, to green infrastructure development policies. Actions can be low-cost and volunteer-heavy, or multi-million dollar projects requiring dedicated staff, environmental analyses, and permitting processes.