Disaster response and climate change: What predicts risk reduction behavior?

A wide range of nonprofits, both faith-based and secular, provide the social assistance, food banks, shelters, community health clinics, and other services that make up each community’s social safety net. Many of these services become vital lifelines for residents impacted by natural disasters. However, even as climate change brings more extreme weather to Indiana, these organizations vary considerably in how much risk reduction they carry out to ensure they can accommodate the needs of the vulnerable populations they serve (seniors, low-income, children, individuals with disabilities, etc.) during and after weather emergencies.

Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs Professor Beth Gazley and doctoral student Rachel Cash surveyed Indiana social, health, and human services charities. Along with O’Neill School Professor Doug Noonan and IU Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Associate Professor Ben Kravitz, they have explored the factors influencing risk reduction behaviors in nonprofit organizations responding to local disasters in the context of climate change. This data provides some general comparisons relevant to other states, especially to those in the Midwest. 

This brief offers Indiana service providers, emergency planners, and policy makers place-based information about the extent to which these essential community resources are preparing for more extreme weather. The analysis offers a neutral, nonpartisan perspective on nonprofit disaster preparedness statewide.

Key findings

  • Charity leaders’ direct experiences with disasters shape climate views.
  • Nonprofit boards of directors who had conversations about climate change were more likely to engage in risk reduction.
  • Focusing on the potential impacts of climate change on a nonprofit’s clients is key to starting a conversation about climate change.
  • Nonprofits with greater organizational capacity were the most likely to engage in risk reduction actions.
  • Discussions about making adaptations for climate change and disaster risk reduction, which usually occur separately, should be integrated to optimize disaster preparedness.
  • Policy makers need to consider all social and human service nonprofits that view themselves as part of each community’s disaster response network and encourage them to participate in various local planning networks.
  • Policy makers must engage all community resources and knowledge about weather and flood risk to meet the demands of disaster response in the face of climate change.