9.5. What Does Implementation Look Like?

Several resources can support you as you carry out the plan. They include funding in the form of grants and loans, technical assistance and in-kind contributions. Some projects may require a combination of your local resources, state and federal assistance, and nongovernmental support. Refer to Annex A: Resources for Resilience for a list of some resources.

Once you have established a resilience vision and goals for your community, it’s time to put the plan into action. Your projects should grow out of ongoing efforts and any new goals. Think about the mitigation actions you’ve included in your mitigation plan. Many of these will also build whole-community resilience; think about focusing on these actions.

After defining a set of resilience projects, you can look for resources and start to define timelines. As in the mitigation plan, make sure that all projects have a designated agency or point of contact that will carry them out. Lay out how your projects connect to your resilience goals. This will help you to describe and measure how projects advance your goals and vision. A formal measurement plan will also support the periodic review of active and planned projects. Such reviews should take place on an annual basis. Use these reviews to check whether projects are aligning with their goals, identify challenges and successes, and think about whether to add new projects or priorities.

As you plan the projects that will support the resilience plan, think about starting with a couple of affordable, visible and simple projects. As you complete these, they will show a “win” for the community. They will promote more resilience buy-in. Completed projects also show a commitment to resilience goals. This may increase the availability of future funding.

Many grant and loan sources require a cost effectiveness calculation. This may be a challenge for resilience or mitigation projects that are meant to withstand future disasters. It may be hard to justify higher costs for benefits that may not be seen for several years. Often, you can address this by factoring in and documenting short-term benefits.

For example, the main goal of a living shoreline project may be to protect properties against storm surge from projected higher sea levels in 2040. However, as soon as the project is done, it may boost tourism, create habitats for wildlife, and provide air and water filtration.

Individual funding sources may not always provide enough project resources. Sometimes, your community may not have the funds to meet a local match percentage. In these cases, you might be able to combine multiple funding sources. For instance, some communities use funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program to meet cost-share requirements for FEMA HMA grant funds.