Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief for People with Disabilities and Older Adults: What Do Grantmakers Need to Know?

The Disability Funders Network has launched a project to ensure that foundations and corporate giving programs have the information they need to include people with disabilities and older adults in their efforts to address emergency preparedness and conduct disaster grantmaking. DFN is a grantmakers’ affinity group whose mission is to promote awareness, support and inclusion of people with disabilities and disability issues in grantmaking programs and organizations. The project — funded by The Archstone Foundation, The New York Community Trust, the Milbank Foundation for Rehabilitation, Citigroup and the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation — will cover:

1. Grantmaking for emergency preparedness, disaster response, and longer term recovery;
2. Convening community groups to gather information and address preparation, response and recovery;
3. Raising the level of awareness of emergency preparedness issues (both within the philanthropic and nonprofit communities and general public awareness); and
4. Foundations’ own internal disaster planning as well as planning-related advice they offer their grantees and applicants.

Products will include a manual addressing these issues for corporate, community and private/independent foundations; Web-based materials; short-hand information on inclusion to be used on the spot for grants made in response to disasters; workshops for grantmakers, and resource lists/links. To produce these materials, DFN is working with the National Organization on Disability; June Kailes; and other experts in the field of emergency preparedness for people with disabilities and older adults.

The following Web sites are both direct sources of information on emergency preparedness for people with disabilities and portals with links to other sites:

• National Organization on Disability (NOD), Emergency Preparedness Initiative Guide on the Special Needs of People with Disabilities
  www.nod.org/cont/dsp_cont_item_view.cfm?viewType=itemView&contentId=1267
• National Center on Emergency Planning for People with Disabilities www.disabilitypreparedness.com
• Center for Disability Issues and the Health Professions & June Isaacson Kailes
  www.cdihp.org
  www.jik.com/disaster.html