Learning from disaster: A natural experiment exploring disaster preparedness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic by houses of worship.

This study illuminates how congregations adapted to an unfolding crisis in real-time and reveals areas of organizational learning and vulnerability. The driving question of this study asks "how has congregational disaster readiness changed during COVID-19?" From this, three measurable corollary questions emerge. First, how has experience during the pandemic changed risk assessment and planning? Second, how has disaster networking changed due to pandemic experiences? Third, did pandemic experience lead to a change in collaboration activities and actions? A natural experiment research design is used to answer these questions.

Bridging cultures: Nonprofit, church, and emergency management agency collaboration after the May 2013 Oklahoma tornado outbreak.

Community-based organizations, such as nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and churches, play an important role in helping individuals and communities bounce back after a disaster. The nature of disasters requires organizations across sectors to partner together to provide recovery services; however, collaboration is difficult even in times of stability and requires trust and communication to be built through prior collaborative relationships. These prior relationships rarely exist between the majority of the nonprofit sector, churches, and existing emergency management structures.