Programs that increase public awareness of the measures that people can take before, during and after a major disaster or wide-scale emergency to reduce loss of life and property and improve their chances for survival. Included are programs that inspect the homes of individual residents and give them a report which suggests ways to enhance their safety and reduce the risk of property damage or loss, as well as those that deal with disaster preparedness in a more general way. Also included are programs that provide fact sheets, hazard maps and other types of technical information about natural disasters that individuals and communities can review and evaluate to see if their area is at risk.

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Organizations within the local area or from other areas that have entered into an agreement with local disaster responders to support their activities following a disaster.

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Programs, primarily national in scope, that work to recruit, prepare, mobilize and/or coordinate the activities of local citizens who are willing to volunteer and help their communities in local emergencies or times of widespread disaster. The programs engage individuals in volunteer activities that support organizations responsible for issuing alerts, advisories and warnings to inform the public of an impending event; first responders; disaster relief groups; community safety organizations including local law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services; and other groups that have emergency management responsibilities during the prevention, mitigation, response, relief and recovery phases of a disaster.

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Programs that are responsible for organizing exercises at the local, provincial or national level to test, evaluate and continually improve the emergency management system and the emergency operations plan. Exercises are simulated emergencies in which members of various agencies perform the tasks that would be expected of them in a real emergency. Included are drills which develop, test, and monitor specialized emergency skills in a single or limited emergency response procedure (e.g., communication) often within a single agency or department; tabletop exercises in which key staff or other emergency management personnel are gathered together informally and without time constraints, usually in a conference room setting, to discuss various simulated emergency situations, associated problems and resolutions; functional exercises which use a scenario to test the capability of individual or multiple emergency functions and give the players (the decision-makers) a fully simulated experience of being in a major emergency event without movement of personnel and equipment; and full scale exercises which involve the mobilization of personnel, equipment and resources, their actual movement, and testing of the coordination and response capability.

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Emergency management agencies, health departments and other entities that conduct multi-hazard planning for their communities that will enable them to mitigate, prepare for, respond to or recover from natural disasters, public health crises, terrorist incidents or other emergencies that occur within or have an impact on their area. Emergency planning addresses citizen awareness and self-sufficiency, responder capabilities, interagency cooperation in emergency operations and the roles, responsibilities and activities of public and private organizations and their staffs in all phases of the disaster.

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Programs that provide training and/or technical assistance for the public and private sectors to enhance emergency planning efforts and the level of overall preparedness by government organizations, community based agencies, businesses, individuals and families for a major disaster or large-scale emergency that disrupts the normal functioning of a community.

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Programs that maintain information about people who may require special assistance in the event of a disaster or crisis that will tell emergency responders or volunteers where they are located and the type of care and support they need. Registration is voluntary, but is strongly encouraged for people who have special medical needs (e.g., oxygen or life support systems that are dependent on electrical power) or have physical disabilities that complicate their ability to evacuate or use shelter facilities without assistance. Some programs encourage everyone to register with the expectation that detailed information can facilitate critical help for the individual and family members in the event of an emergency.

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