Fire to Flourish
Designing a new blueprint for community-led disaster resilience
Challenge
Fire to Flourish was launched in the aftermath of Australia’s devastating 2019–20 bushfires, as an ambitious five-year initiative led by Monash University. It set out to test a fundamentally different model for disaster resilience: shifting power, resources and decision-making towards communities impacted by disaster.
Fire to Flourish was establishing its team, strategy and ways of working at the same time as beginning work with communities deeply affected by disaster. There was no established blueprint.
“We were at a point where we couldn’t articulate exactly what we needed. We needed hand-holding to put more definition around our strategy and how that linked to leadership roles.”
Briony Rogers, CEO, Fire to Flourish
Solution
Over two years we worked alongside Briony and the wider team, helping shape and sharpen strategy, advising on communications and leadership, and mentoring Briony and her exec team.
We also delivered workshops to support capability and collaboration across the Fire to Flourish team, its National Indigenous Disaster Resilience project and disaster-affected communities. The work brought together people with different expertise and lived experience.
As the initiative evolved, we provided responsive advice to help the team make sense of what they were learning, decide where to focus and keep strategy connected to practice. Plus think bigger about how to build systems-level influence.
“Your commitment to social change and collective impact aligns perfectly with what we are trying to do. Combining leadership, strategy and communication, and creating a visible platform, helped us to think holistically and bring those threads together.”
Outcome
Fire to Flourish went on to demonstrate what community-led disaster resilience could look like at scale. Across four bushfire-affected regions, it invested $11.6 million in 258 community-led projects, strengthening local leadership, preparedness and connection.
Its impact travelled beyond those communities. Fire to Flourish helped establish the DisasterWISE peer-learning community network. It also supported the growth of the National Indigenous Disaster Resilience program into national prominence. NIDR went on to design a National Indigenous Disaster Resilience framework for the Commonwealth Government.
Critically, Fire to Flourish brought community leaders into direct conversation with policymakers, funders and researchers. In doing so, Fire to Flourish helped make the case for community-led resilience as a credible alternative to business-as-usual.
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