The Resilience Advantage:
Build Your Small Business
Resilience Plan
A practical tool created by the authors of “The Resilience Advantage” to protect your people, property and profit in the face of climate risks.
Small businesses are especially vulnerable to disasters: about 40% never reopen after a major event. Yet with even basic planning, businesses can reduce downtime, minimize financial loss, and recover faster. Whether you're facing extreme heat, flooding, wildfires, or power outages, building a resilience plan can turn uncertainty into action.
This tool helps you:
Identify and prioritize your top local climate risks
Take concrete steps to protect people, property, and income
Organize information for insurance, emergency response, and continuity
Be ready to respond and recover—so your business can survive and thrive
Step 1: Know Your Risks
Before you plan how to protect your business, take a few minutes to identify which types of disasters are most likely to affect your area. Here are some recommended actions:
Look up your location using any or all of the following sites:
Realtor.com’s “Environmental Risks” tool – click on My Home -> type in your address -> click on “Market Value” -> scroll down to “Environmental Risks”
Local hazard mitigation plans from your city or county
Rate your risk for each hazard as High, Medium, or Low in the Hazard Risk Assessment below, based on:
What you find in the above sites
What you’ve experienced in the past
What neighbors or local officials say is common in your area
Make quick notes to explain your thinking behind each rating—this will help guide next steps.
Step 2: Protect Your People
Your staff’s safety is the foundation of business resilience. Clear plans and visible information can help your team respond confidently in a crisis. Here are some recommended actions :
Walk through your workplace and identify what your team would need in a risk emergency. Think about how people would evacuate, where they would shelter, and how you would contact each other.
Complete the checklist below to organize and track key actions that keep employees and customers safe.
Train your staff on emergency procedures—review them at least once a year or anytime your team changes. OSHA’s Workplace Emergency Plan Guidance is a useful resource to understand what to cover: Emergency Preparedness and Response | Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Step 3: Protect Your Property & Operations
Your business assets—equipment, inventory, data, and documents—are critical to staying afloat after a disaster. Taking protective steps now can reduce damage and speed up your recovery. Here are some recommended steps:
Do a walkthrough of your space—look for equipment that could be damaged by water, wind, fire, or power loss.
Use the checklist below to prepare your physical space and digital records for risks that could harm property and disrupt operations.
Make sure multiple team members know where important systems are and how to prepare, including accessing emergency backups.
Step 4: Protect Your Profit
Disasters don’t just damage buildings—they disrupt cash flow, payroll, and customer access. Planning ahead can help your business survive unexpected revenue loss and bounce back faster. Here are some recommended actions:
Review your financial records and estimate how much cash you’d need in reserve to stay open (or reopen) after a disruption.
Complete the checklist below to make sure you are financially prepared for downtime, relocation, or emergency repairs.
Talk to your insurance agent and banker before the risk strikes to understand what is and isn’t covered—and where your recovery funding might come from.
Understand the support available to you before a disaster occurs. For example, the Small Business Association provides Disaster Loans.
Step 5: Communication & Continuity
When disaster strikes, clear communication helps keep employees, customers, and partners informed—and prevents confusion from becoming chaos. Here are some recommended actions:
Create a simple communication plan for how your team will share updates internally and externally before, during, and after a disruption.
Use the template below to list where your contact info, messaging templates, and backups are stored.
Assign roles defining who will send customer updates, contact vendors, or coordinate remote work.