After the collapse of a condominium tower in North Miami in June 2021, Rebecca Fishman Lipsey realized her organization needed to overhaul how it responded to disasters.
As CEO of the Miami Foundation, the city’s main community foundation, Fishman Lipsey began working to rally support for victims of the tragedy that killed 98 people and destroyed the 136-unit building. Funders were eager to help, but there was a problem.
She remembers corporate partners calling her saying, “We’re in, we’re with you. Just fill out this form and the money will be there in six weeks.”
Those who lost homes and loved ones could not wait that long. As Fishman Lipsey and her team struggled to raise and distribute funds, she imagined the next crisis.
“It won’t be a building in an isolated neighborhood,” she said. “It will be a climate disaster and I won’t have internet to fill out an application. I can’t wait six weeks for the check to clear. I already need everyone’s ACH information. I need to know what supplies people need before the disaster.”
To meet these needs, the Miami Foundation decided to build a new crisis response model. With the help of several foundations and partners, including Citadel and the Miami Heat, it created the Miami Disaster Resilience Fund, a permanent and revolving fund whose profits could be used to support a network of nonprofit organizations in Miami before, during and after a crisis. disaster.
Establishing a permanent fund allows the Miami Foundation to issue grants as soon as hurricane season begins and, if a storm hits, send aid quickly. The money remains in the fund, which increases through investments, until it is needed. Last year, Miami’s Disaster Relief Fund grew more than 17 percent to about $8 million. “We’re going into this season with $1 million that no one had to donate,” Fishman Lipsey said.
Community foundations — tax-exempt philanthropic institutions that manage a variety of funding sources to give to other groups and individuals — typically focus their giving on local populations. But as community leaders, they are also called upon to help in crises, a role they may play more frequently as weather events become more frequent and intense.
Last year, the United States broke the record for the most disasters, with damages exceeding one billion dollars. A forecast for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins June 1, issued last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association predicted at least 17 named storms and four to seven major hurricanes.
Foundations need new strategies to prepare, said Patty McIlreavy, president and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. “There is room in all types of charities to explore how to set aside money for this and to be much more proactive,” she said. “We need all types of foundations to explore the reality of disasters coming to communities.”
Having funds ready in advance can also save money – and possibly lives – because foundations can direct money toward preparation. “It will be much less expensive,” McIlreavy said. “It is much more difficult to come out of a disaster and recover from it than to have something mitigated and never occur.”
On the first day of hurricane season, the Miami Foundation will issue a series of proactive grants supporting programs to educate residents about what supplies to store, how to prepare their homes and when to evacuate. It will help provide sandbags, tarps and other protective equipment.
If a storm is forecast, the foundation can transfer money to these same partners immediately. “When I see that the storm is going to hit in three days, I can send them the resources right away,” Fishman Lipsey said. “I don’t have to wait for checks to clear.”
About 100 miles north of Miami, in Stuart, Florida, a much smaller community foundation is about to launch its own permanent disaster fund. The Martin-St. Community Foundation Lucie raised $300,000 for her Local Disaster Relief Fund, with a goal of raising $500,000 by mid-summer.
When CEO Elizabeth Barbella heard Fishman Lipsey speak at a meeting of community foundation leaders last year, she referenced the frustration of having to wait too long to help in a crisis.
“Historically, in the middle of the storm, I would be preparing something to reach out to our customers and friends and say, ‘Okay, it’s real. The storm hit. We’re going to need to help frontline organizations very quickly,’” Barbella told the Associated Press. “And when the dust settles, we would be reaching out to organizations asking for some kind of simple application and then deploying the capability.”
To speed up that response, the foundation is creating advance agreements with half a dozen local nonprofits that can provide basic needs like food, medicine and housing after a storm.
One such partner is House of Hope, based in Martin County, Florida. It began as a food bank 40 years ago and has grown to provide a range of essential services, such as employment and housing support, to around 21,000 residents per month.
With a grant from the Local Disaster Relief Fund, House of Hope will spend the summer distributing hurricane kits to its clients, filled with food, water and batteries.
Without this assistance, most of the organization’s clients would not be able to stock up on supplies, said Rob Ranieri, CEO of House of Hope. “That’s a few hundred dollars they don’t have in their budget.”
If a storm hits, the fund will support House of Hope’s work to replace what clients lose, such as perishable food that spoils due to a power outage. Most of the people it serves are hourly workers who don’t get paid if their businesses close, so the organization will be ready to help them with rent and medical bills.
Paying House of Hope’s own employees to work overtime or hiring temporary employees to provide services is also expensive. The agreement with the community foundation gives Ranieri confidence that he will have the resources to meet the need.
“Now we can plan, know that we will have the resources, that we will have things in place and ready to go,” he said. “This will make us an effective resource for the low-income community and it will be almost instantaneous, like flipping a switch.”
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