Assessing the Return on Investment of FEMA’s Whole Community Approach

PI: Kathleen Tierney
Project Lead: Liesel Ritchie
External Collaborator: Carolyn Kousky
NHC Research Project Team: Nnenia Campbell, Simone Domingue, and Jamie Vickery
External Research Project Team: Brett Lingle
Funding Period: 2015 – 2017
Funder: Federal Emergency Management Agency

A 2005 FEMA-sponsored study, Natural Hazards Mitigation Saves found that “brick and mortar” disaster mitigation projects save $4 for every federal dollar spent. This research focused on the returns to investment in community-based efforts such as disaster preparedness, outreach, partnership building, and public education—so called “whole-community” activities that are more difficult to quantify.