How Grantmakers Can Thrive Amid Climate Events and Stay Operational When It Matters Most
A huge thank you to Audrey Kidwell, Grants Manager for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, for providing many of the resources and tips included in this article.
Hurricanes. Wildfires. Floods. Prolonged droughts.
Climate events are no longer a once-in-a-generation occurrence. Modern grantmakers must be prepared and ready to support their communities when—not if—a climate disaster hits.
Here’s how to stay operational, support your community, and adapt quickly when a climate event disrupts your work.
Where Are You in Your Response to a Climate Event?
Not every grantmaker is reading this from the same place, and what you need right now may look very different depending on your situation.
If You’re Preparing Ahead of a Climate Event:
Start with Build a Grantmaking Model That Can Withstand Disruption to strengthen your operations, partnerships, and funding strategies before a crisis hits.
If You’re Actively Responding to a Disaster:
Start with Keep Your Operations Running Under Pressure and Fund What Matters Most—Without Slowing Them Down for immediate, practical steps you can take today.
Wherever you are, this guide is designed to help you stay operational, support your community, and adapt quickly when conditions change
Keep Your Operations Running Under Pressure
Your community depends on you staying operational, even in the middle of a crisis. Focus on a few critical moves to keep your systems running and your team supported, even if your circumstances are changing by the hour.
Embrace Cloud-Based Processes
Institute digital processes so your staff can access necessary systems from anywhere. Translate any paper processes into digital ones using your cloud-based grant management system. This flexibility ensures that operations can continue even if your physical office is impacted, for example if your staff need to work from a different location or have to shift their schedules.
Verify Basic Needs for Employees
Before anything else, make sure your team is safe. Climate events affect employees and their families in very real ways. Check in to understand each person’s situation and connect them with local resources if needed. Once your team is accounted for, you can shift focus to what needs to continue and what can pause.
Engage with Partner Organizations
Reach out to parter organizations to identify where there is overlapping support. Start with organizations you’ve worked with before and ask where they’re seeing the greatest need. For example, if your funding typically focuses on education but your community is facing immediate housing or food insecurity challenges, partners can help you direct resources without losing momentum.
Plan for Utility Outages
Have a plan for short-term outages, including both electricity and internet. This might look like shifting work to mobile hotspots, temporarily relocating operations, or identifying which tasks can continue offline. Make sure employees know how to communicate if systems are down and what to prioritize when access is limited.
Employee Roles and Responsibilities
Clarify who is focused on keeping operations running and who may be supporting on-the-ground efforts in their communities, and when those roles might switch. Even a quick alignment helps reduce confusion and ensures critical work continues without overloading your team.
Fund What Matters Most Without Slowing Them Down
Supporting your grantees effectively during a climate event requires a long-term perspective and flexibility. Here are some essential steps.
Simplify Processes
If you launch an emergency funding program, streamline the process as much as possible. This includes simple narratives, flexible budgets, clear timelines for decisions, and a quick approval process. For example, you might replace multi-step applications with a short form or allow for budget changes without a formal amendment.
Extend Deadlines
For programs currently in the application cycle, extend deadlines for potential grantees in impacted areas. Update programs to include operating expenses or costs associated with cleanup and communicate with current grantees about waiving or postponing reporting deadlines.
Be Aware of Communication Challenges
Understand that mail and other forms of communication will likely be delayed. Plan for these delays and ensure grantees know that you are aware of the challenges they face.
Collaborate Locally
If you do not launch an emergency funding program, support local organizations that can quickly get funds to the communities you serve. This collaboration can make a significant—and immediate—impact.
Take the Long View
Disaster recovery is a long-term process. As the Center for Disaster Philanthropy notes in their tips for disaster giving, funders should be patient in planning their disaster funding because the impact of the disaster will unfold over time. Your community will need flexible funding throughout the recovery period.
Listen to Your Community
Understand what is already being done in your community and where there is still a need. Listening to your community will help you identify where your support can be most effective.
Build a Grantmaking Model that Can Withstand Disruption
Preparation is key to mitigating the impact of future climate events. Here’s how grantmakers can be ready.
Conduct a Risk Assessment
Evaluate your organization to identify which processes would be most impacted by a climate event. Task relevant employees with making these processes more resilient, such as moving to a paperless application and review process and automating payment processes. Consider not just what could break, but what would need to continue no matter what, such as grant payments, communications, or board approvals.
Create a Single System of Record
Having a single system of record breaks down silos within your organization, making it easier for different team members to step in and keep processes moving seamlessly if someone is unavailable.
Build Strong Partnerships
Establish relationships with other grantmaking organizations and community leaders. Look for community foundations with missional overlap and create plans for mutual support during a crisis.
Establish an Operation Reserve
Create an operating reserve or reserve fund specifically for community emergencies. Define clear policies on when and how this fund can be used, particularly in the event of a climate disaster.
Create a Disaster and Recovery Guide
Develop a comprehensive disaster and recovery guide for your organization. This guide should outline the steps to take and who is responsible at each stage of a crisis. Ensure all team members are familiar with this plan.
Encourage Disaster Preparedness
Encourage your team to engage with educational resources such as the Stop Disasters Game to learn about building disaster-resistant cities. Keep emergency supplies, such as first aid kits, blankets, water, non-perishable food, and power supplies, at the office in case it becomes the safest place for people to be.
Provide Employee Resources
Ensure that your employees and their families are prepared for a climate event. Host training sessions for basic skills such as CPR and first aid. Consider setting up an employee assistance fund for staff who experience losses during a disaster.
What to Do in the First 72 Hours of a Climate Event
You need focus and clarity when your community experiences a climate event. Use this checklist to stabilize operations and begin supporting your community right away.
First 24 Hours: Stabilize Your Organization
- Confirm the safety and availability of your staff
- Activate internal communication channels (email, messaging, backup contacts)
- Shift to remote or cloud-based systems if your office or infrastructure is impacted
- Assign clear roles for operations, communications, and funding response
- Communicate internally about what’s expected, what’s flexible, and what can wait
24–48 Hours: Communicate and Reduce Friction
- Send a brief check-in to grantees acknowledging the situation
- Share any immediate changes, such as extended deadlines, paused reporting, or flexible funding
- Begin tracking which grantees and communities are most affected
- Simplify any active application or reporting requirements
- Identify gaps in communication due to outages or delays
48–72 Hours: Start Funding and Coordinating Response
- Determine whether to launch an emergency funding effort or support existing local funds
- Prioritize flexible, unrestricted funding where possible
- Connect with community foundations, regional funders, or trusted partners
- Identify immediate funding priorities based on community feedback
- Set expectations for ongoing communication, even if updates are brief
In the earliest days of a disaster, your goal should be to stay present, responsive, and accessible to your grantees and staff.
All Modern Grantmakers Must Be Prepared for the Next Disaster
Climate events will continue to test how organizations operate and respond. By building systems, relationships, and processes that allow you to adapt without losing momentum, you can make sure that your community remains resilient and well-supported when the worst happens.
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy also provides a number of resources to help funding organizations navigate climate events.
- Disaster Phases
- Emergency and Interim Shelter
- Emergency Response Services
- Disaster preparedness: Individuals, organizations and communities benefit from planning ahead
- Hurricane Helene: How funders can support recovery
- A conversation for funders on reforms for disaster assistance to help survivors recover faster
For further resources and detailed action steps, check out these other resources:
