Update: New Direction

DLAD’s purpose was to create a people-centered registry of disaster survivors to help them and our communities recover more efficiently and equitably in the future.

The good news is that our work supported disaster response professionals in government and industry to build and adopt a solution. Our work is now focused on supporting their efforts to put people at the center of disaster response data.

What’s below is a record of our original vision for DLAD in case your community finds that a more locally customized and controlled solution would serve your needs better.

As always, please reach out if you have any questions or comments.

Who’s Behind DLAD

The idea was originally formulated by Stephen Sloan and Ellie Holty at LocalInnovation.works in the form of a blog post and has since been adopted and supported by Southern Oregon University’s Institute for Applied Sustainability. The concept has been refined with the support of the Jackson County Long Term Recovery Group, the RVCOAD, and many partners active in recovery from the 2020 Labor Day fires at the local and state levels. Learn more in the video below.

Executive summary

Download the slides

The original blog post that launched the DLAD idea

The Problem

In the wake of disaster, many organizations collect data, then lock it away for a variety of reasons. This means no one who is responsible for community recovery has a complete list of people affected by a disaster. It’s like trying to run a hospital without a list of patients. Learn more about the problem in the video below.

A Proposed Solution

We need one clean, locally-owned source of data on who was affected by a disaster and the state of their recovery. Learn about our thoughts on a solution in the video below.

The Roadmap for Developing DLAD App and Org

To build the DLAD for Southern Oregon, we plan the following work:

	2023		2024
	Q3	Q4	Q1	Q2	Q3
Team/Phase	Design	Startup	Development	Development	Operational
Development	Interim	Startup	Build
Funding	Grant Apps	Startup	Capacity
Trust		Recruit	Train	Train	Ready
Tech	v0 prototype	Design	Build App	Analysis	Ready
DLAD Meetings	Socializing the DLAD idea	Kickoff	Team working meetings	Team working meetings	Operational coordination

What if something happens before we can fully build DLAD in 2023?

Descriptions of the Phases

Design Phase

Currently working with a small group of early leaders to have a prototype ready for emergency use in the summer of 2023 in case disaster strikes our area.
Web content (these pages) are built to share our thinking with the community who will build the organization and its tools
Exploratory conversations to socialize the DLAD idea in community are underway.

Startup phase – started May 2023

Community trust organizations and people who are trusted in the community before disaster strikes build the partnerships necessary to ensure complete community adoption and immediate implementation
Community leaders support the development of the organization
Legal team supports privacy policy, community partnership agreements, risk management, and organizational structure and governance.
Data architects build and extend an efficient and comprehensive data structure
Technical architects design and improve the technology required to support our solutions
Application developers build front and back end tool sets for collecting, analyzing, and reporting on data

Prototype and Emergency Launch Sequence

If, in the summer of 2023, disaster strikes in Southern Oregon, the Development team can rally the Technical and Trust teams to use our prototype tool to collect data on those affected. While this will not be ideal, it will be better than repeating the data disaster of 2020.
The Development team will need to organize the Technical team’s work to support or modify the prototype as new requirements become clear. The Trust team will need to rally their communities and staffs to ensure a complete census of those affected by the disaster is collected and validated.
While this will be a sometimes challenging effort, the data collected and lessons learned will be invaluable to our community and many others. It will be worth the effort to refine the DLAD idea in the crucible of reality.
Even partial, difficult efforts will be valuable learning experiences the DLAD teams will use to inform a more impactful solution for next time.

The Development Roadmap

See the technical roadmap here

A prototype with data structure in Google forms
Draft workflow modeling
And then we get together a technical team to look at a more complete and secure data structure, and solution stack.
Funding for organizational capacity building to launch the development phase in Q4 of 2023. More on how this might be funded here. [link to funding page]

Operational phase – starts Summer 2024

Data collectors to support a complete census of disaster, affected people
Operations – data collection and organization development
- Data governance to build and maintain secure access to valid, timely data
Analysts to validate, clean, update, and analyze data to meet the needs of partner organizations and the DLAD team

Where DLAD Fits

This data will likely be owned by a community partnership organized between the local COAD, Jackson County LTRG, and related recovery organizations.

How You Can Help

We would love to include your experience, ideas, and energy in organizing a DLAD in Southern Oregon as a prototype for a solution that might work across Oregon.

Ways to support our work

Ask your best questions or share your concerns here
Share DLAD
- Tell your network what we’re up to by posting a link to our page on your social media or via your next email newsletter. – https://www.localinnovation.works/digital-leaders-active-in-disaster/
Share your skills by joining one of our teams
Help us fund the project [link to funding page]

Join the List of Interested Leaders to Explore Joining a Team

Reach Out with Questions

Learn more about the commitment DLAD might require.

Your Community’s DLAD

If you see how DLAD might be helpful in your community, we’re sharing our process with you via these pages so that you can find shortcuts to building your own local DLAD team. Feel free to borrow, share, or reach out to us to discuss how this might work in your community.

To start your own process, we suggest that you:

Start with exploratory conversations with trusted leaders in your area from across the spectrum of your community as well as officials who are responsible for disaster response and community and economic recovery. Share these pages and start talking about how this all might be adapted to meet your needs.