A Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management:
Principles, Themes, and Pathways for Action
3
identified people, organizations, and communities with promising local experiences. They
participated in various meetings and conferences and, in some cases, provided the examples
included in this document.
In addition to the national dialogue, this document was created concurrently with a larger effort
to build an integrated, layered, all-of-Nation approach to preparedness, as called for by
Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-8): National Preparedness.
6
As such, the Whole Community
approach is being incorporated into all PPD-8 deliverables, including the National Preparedness
Goal, National Preparedness System description, National Planning Frameworks, and the
campaign to build and sustain preparedness nationwide, as well as leverage the approach in their
development.
7
In support of these efforts, FEMA seeks to spark exploration into community
engagement strategies to promote further discussion on approaches that position local residents
for leadership roles in planning, organizing, and sharing accountability for the success of local
disaster management efforts, and which enhance our Nation’s security and resilience.
Whole Community Defined
As a concept, Whole Community is a means by which residents, emergency management
practitioners, organizational and community leaders, and government officials can collectively
understand and assess the needs of their respective communities and determine the best ways to
organize and strengthen their assets, capacities, and interests. By doing so, a more effective path
to societal security and resilience is built. In a sense, Whole Community is a philosophical
approach on how to think about conducting emergency management.
There are many different kinds of communities,
including communities of place, interest, belief, and
circumstance, which can exist both geographically
and virtually (e.g., online forums). A Whole
Community approach attempts to engage the full
capacity of the private and nonprofit sectors,
including businesses, faith-based and disability
organizations, and the general public, in conjunction
with the participation of local, tribal, state, territorial,
and Federal governmental partners. This engagement
means different things to different groups. In an all-
hazards environment, individuals and institutions will
make different decisions on how to prepare for and
respond to threats and hazards; therefore, a
community’s level of preparedness will vary. The
challenge for those engaged in emergency
management is to understand how to work with the
diversity of groups and organizations and the policies
and practices that emerge from them in an effort to
improve the ability of local residents to prevent,
protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from any type of threat or hazard effectively.
6
President Barack Obama, “Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8): National Preparedness,” March 30, 2011.
7
FEMA, “National Preparedness Goal,” September 2011. (Formally released on October 7, 2011.)
Whole Community is a philosophical
approach in how to conduct the
business of emergency management.
Benefits include:
Shared understanding of community
needs and capabilities
Greater empowerment and
integration of resources from across
the community
Stronger social infrastructure
Establishment of relationships that
facilitate more effective prevention,
protection, mitigation, response, and
recovery activities
Increased individual and collective
preparedness
Greater resiliency at both the
community and national levels