New Research Examines the NC Inclusive Disaster Recovery Network and the Power of Collaborative Disaster Recovery
As the North Carolina Inclusive Disaster Recovery Network (NCIDR) approaches its 10th anniversary, new peer-reviewed research offers an opportunity to examine what nearly a decade of cross-sector collaboration can teach us about building more inclusive and adaptive approaches to disaster recovery.
Led by Kayla Gilligan, a Ph.D. student at NC State University, the newly published research is the first peer-reviewed study examining NCIDR and its role as a cross-sector network connecting government, nonprofit, and community-based organizations around disaster recovery in North Carolina.
The research partnership dates back to 2021, when Gilligan was an undergraduate student working with Dr. Bethany Cutts. Its publication comes at a meaningful moment as NCIDR prepares to celebrate a decade of relationships, learning, and collaboration across the state.
What the research found
Disaster recovery in the United States often requires government agencies, nonprofits, community-based organizations, and other institutions to coordinate complex systems of funding, information, and services. But collaboration alone does not guarantee equitable outcomes.
The research examines whether networks like NCIDR can create space for organizations to learn, adapt, and challenge traditional approaches to disaster recovery and where inequities can persist even within collaborative structures.
Among the findings:
- Organizations aware of NCIDR reported higher adaptive capacity than organizations that were not aware of the network.
- Among organizations aware of NCIDR, 96.7% reported engaging with the network in some way, including reading emails, attending meetings, or sharing resources.
- Organizations across different types generally had positive perceptions of NCIDR’s collaborative structure.
- Community-based organizations were more likely than other organizations to identify funding efficiency as a reason for engaging with the network.
The study also found that organizations aware of NCIDR were marginally more likely to define inclusion in terms of providing specialized services to historically underserved communities.
Together, the findings suggest NCIDR may provide an important learning space where organizations can develop adaptive capacity and approach disaster recovery differently.
Learning and continuing to ask hard questions
The research also points to an important tension: bringing organizations together does not automatically eliminate the structural inequities that shape disaster recovery.
The authors note that collaborative networks must remain attentive to whether the structures and practices within collaboration reproduce the same marginalization they seek to address.
That finding is particularly relevant to NCIDR’s commitment to centering grassroots and community-based organizations in disaster recovery. It reinforces the importance of not only creating opportunities for collaboration, but continually examining who participates, whose knowledge shapes decisions, how resources move, and who holds influence within those spaces.
For MDC and NCIDR, those questions are part of the work.
A timely milestone as NCIDR turns 10
NCIDR formed following Hurricane Matthew in 2016 from a recognition that disaster recovery required greater accountability and stronger allyship with grassroots and community-based leaders.
Over the decade since, North Carolina communities have faced multiple devastating storms, a pandemic, and continuing challenges around housing, infrastructure, economic security, and access to recovery resources. Through those challenges, NCIDR has continued to connect organizations and communities to share knowledge, strengthen relationships, and work toward more inclusive approaches to disaster recovery.
This new research adds another opportunity to learn from that experience not simply to document what has happened, but to consider what stronger, more equitable disaster recovery networks can look like going forward.
As NCIDR prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary in Lumberton on November 9–10, the publication offers a timely reflection on the network’s first decade and the work still ahead.
