With ever-widening budget gaps and stress placed on local and state governments, there is an opportunity to reimagine how we spend on and design resilience projects. Even though everyone agrees with the basic premise, changing entrenched processes and systems to include an additional factor requires broad support and consensus building. Outside and private funding is necessary to fill gaps but cannot be the only source of funding. Moving beyond forming another committee and developing individual plans for every department, we recommend considering the following actions.
Develop a Network
- Relationships and partnerships at project inception will maintain and grow project champions
- Connect project impacts to community members with tours and presentations
- Involve agencies in planning meetings and when setting resilience priorities
- Track funding opportunities year around that provide funding for multiple stages of the project including planning
Build Local Support
- Ensure that resilience is a front burner community topic at various local interest levels and groups
- Conduct a participatory budget process to provide community members a better understanding of funding priorities and strengthen support
Lead with Example
- Local support and review of budget priorities will signal to funders your commitment to resilience, involve all the departments that use local funds to consider co-benefits
- Identify new local revenue streams for resilience projects
Focusing on co-benefits of resilience projects and linking green infrastructure methods into already planned and funded projects would further entrench local resiliency lenses to be applied to projects.
