Trust is the Cornerstone of DLAD
After the 2020 Labor Day Fires in Southern Oregon, many who lost everything in the fire were reluctant to seek support because of trust challenges for a variety of legal, personal, and historical reasons. Many who desperately needed and were entitled to benefits didn’t receive them. If a coordinated group of community based organizations were to collect and share survivor data, we would have a better chance of serving all survivors equitably and efficiently. This would require coalition-generated ROIs, partner agreements, and clear data privacy policies and governance.
Why Trust is Required
- To ask a community member to share their data and open a channel of communication with a community organization requires a trusting relationship.
- Many of the communities who need the most help do not trust the large organizations normally most visible in disaster response (FEMA as a part of the Department of Homeland Security, for instance)
- To fully recover our most vulnerable neighbors may need ongoing, progressive engagement to navigate the complexities of evolving recovery programs. Especially for,
- Seniors
- Immigrant, migrant or ESL communities
- Young families
- People who struggle with structures of authority
- Houseless neighbors
- Communications coming from trusted people and organizations are more likely to be read and acted upon.
Good Data Offers
- Clarity – about needs and the state of recovery for individuals and the community based in complete, accurate, timely data
- Power of Community Ownership – the community with the best data has a more persuasive case when advocating for more resources or for program changes to meet community needs. The community with the best, most complete data about their needs will find more funding faster. Community ownership allows us to control data privacy and sharing to maximize recovery and privacy at the same time.
- Privacy & Support – people on the list can easily choose to share their data with their trusted recovery organizations so they can learn about resources and programs quickly and easily.
- Reporting on Equity and Inclusion – demographic data can be rolled up into anonymized reports on need and recovery status.
- Reporting on Organizational Effort and Impact – organizations who are doing the hard work of outreach and recovery support can easily report on the effectiveness and costs of their efforts for grant applications and reporting.
Benefits to Organizations
Responding to a disaster on top of the daily needs your organization meets is challenging. Our vision is to build the system over time into one that will allow you to track and report on your efforts and impacts to all funders to pour resources into the organizations making a difference in their communities.
- Resource Information – this data will allow your community members to be among the first to learn about new resources and programs.
- Track Individual Needs and Recovery – the data can help you track your community member’s recoveries and ensure no one falls through the cracks.
- Report on Impact – our vision is to build the ability for you to easily report on your efforts and impact, on how your community is progressing, outstanding needs, and even on how many in the community cite you as their key trusted recovery organization- all helpful in applying for recovery grant funding
- Avoid Duplication of Efforts – shared recovery data will help community based organizations focus their work where it’s needed most.
- Fund Outreach Efforts – see the skills and labor needed to collect and update data for your community. This clarity on what it takes to serve your community can make funding your efforts easier.
The Role of Trusted Community Organizations
So much good work is done in our community every day by organizations like yours. You earn trust by serving with clarity of purpose and commitment to healing.
DLAD is designed around a team of leaders from trusted organizations like yours partnering to own the data, set clear privacy policies and system requirements, and then supporting their community members in being counted should disaster strike again.
Organizations we imagine will want to help shape the solution and encourage those they serve to be counted (maybe even help count them).
- Unite Oregon
- NWSWA
- Rogue Climate
- Coalición Fortaleza
- Unete
- AARP
- Age Plus
- Renters advocates, anti-eviction, and houseless support organizations
How You Can Get Involved
- Learn more about DLAD – read here or contact us to discuss your questions.
- Join the Community Trust Team to help us design and build a community-owned data source that will support you and your community for years to come (and serve as a prototype for other communities)
- Help us plan to meet the disaster affected in your community where they are, physically and emotionally with tabling, peer canvassing, and progressive engagement.
- Help us design a fundraising model aimed at compensating members of your team for their outreach efforts after a disaster. It is very important that we build this structure to support future disaster recovery efforts at the grassroots level.
After a disaster
- Sharing the registration link with your community
- Support your community members in registering themselves and their households
- Canvassing your community to be sure everyone affected is registered.
Next steps
- Reach out, we’d love to connect with you and learn more about your community, your organization, and your questions.
Learn more about the commitment DLAD might require.