The full report will be available here from 18 September 2026.
Australian governments at every level have explicitly committed, in policy, to a community-centred and shared-responsibility model of disaster resilience, a commitment reflected consistently from the 2011 National Strategy for Disaster Resilience onward. However, the lived experiences of East Gippsland communities since 2019–2020 tell a more complicated story. Many people we spoke with as part of this research described recovery and resilience programs as something done to them rather than with them. Even where intentions or narratives of external organisations were around community leadership, this was rarely experienced as such. Complex and shifting systems, fragmented coordination, and burdensome funding processes have pushed responsibility onto communities and volunteers without a corresponding transfer of resources, authority, or decision-making power.
However, there are some excellent examples of where effective resilience-building initiatives are occurring, and what can be learned. The Report highlights community-led models that show what effective collaboration can look like, including the East Gippsland Winter Festival, the East Gippsland Community Foundation, and the complementary contributions of organisations such as ABV, Arup, and BlazeAid. These examples show that where communities are genuinely resourced and trusted to lead, business and skilled volunteering generate lasting social, economic, and psychosocial benefit.
Study Findings
- A persistent disconnect exists between government disaster resilience policy and its implementation, leaving communities to shoulder excessive responsibility.
- Generic, one-size-fits-all resilience initiatives often fail to address the specific risks and conditions communities actually face.
- Funding design and acquittal processes undermine confidence, participation, and community agency, and frequently place neighbouring communities and groups in competition with one another.
- Despite considerable goodwill, fragmented coordination, unclear roles, and high government agency staff turnover reduce the effectiveness of response, recovery, and preparedness.
- Structural conditions constrain volunteering’s positive impact, leaving an enormous volume of skilled voluntary effort invisible, unrecognised, and unsustainable in the long term.
Summary of Proposed Directions for Action
In response to these findings, we propose the following as evidence-based actions:
ACTION 1: Recognise and strengthen the role business and skilled volunteering plays in post-disaster recovery and resilience, including the contribution local businesses make to social and economic recovery.
ACTION 2: Commit to sustained investment in social infrastructure, recognising the evidence that this delivers a stronger return on disaster resilience than physical infrastructure alone. Leaving communities responsible for essential services destroys volunteers’ goodwill and trust.
ACTION 3: Follow through on existing policy commitments to put communities at the centre of disaster resilience, closing the long-standing gap between stated aims and community experience.
ACTION 4: Translate “community-led” from a slogan into concrete behaviours that support community resilience by backing it with resources, authority, and decision-making power.
ACTION 5: Deliver meaningful reform of disaster funding, including through the Commonwealth’s proposed Disaster Recovery Funding Framework, so that funding reduces the burden on communities and focuses on outcomes rather than process.
These questions were explored in conversation with individuals, community organisations, and businesses working in East Gippsland to learn more about how they have been involved in business volunteering, and how they have seen these initiatives play out in the community.
This research asks what business sector volunteering can contribute to community response, recovery and resilience. The focus is understanding the role of pro-bono business expertise to community preparedness and resilience.
The report is part of the Australian Government–funded disaster resilience project in East Gippsland, Resilient Regions (Victoria).
In partnership with Deakin University and Australian Business Volunteers, CHL conducted a study titled, ‘Unpacking community resilience: the contribution of business volunteering and potential future partnerships.’ The project examined how collaboration between local businesses, skilled volunteers, and communities builds resilience capacity. CHL and Deakin researchers are developing an evidence base on these relationships to inform future practice.
Read more in this announcement from Australian Government Minister for Emergency Management, Murray Watt or view the project launch video below.
