Disaster Relief in India: How Can Corporates Contribute?

With extreme weather conditions on the rise in India, natural disasters have become a matter of immediate concern for communities, government, civil society organisations and corporates. Natural disasters cause loss of life, and property, and knock communities back on developmental goals.

Typically, disaster management includes five steps: prevention of disaster, mitigation to reduce losses, preparedness for emergencies, response/relief after a disaster and to build lives back. Here, we will focus on response or relief which involves providing shelter, food, clothes, medicines, etc to affected communities in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Based on our work with corporates, here are some ways in which businesses can respond to disasters.

How can corporates contribute?

The most obvious support corporates can extend is through funding relief work on the ground. The following examples illustrate how funding can be provided:

In-kind Donations: Corporates can directly send relief items to affected communities. A few ways in which in-kind donations can be sent are mentioned below:

After a rapid needs assessment, corporates should compile a donation kit that is relevant to the communities – for example, milk may not be relevant because of its short shelf life. However, milk powder can be included in the kit. Items with long shelf life or no expiration date, that are also culturally relevant, and of urgent requirement should be put together for in-kind donations.

Service Provision: Disasters may sometimes involve the breakdown of critical services, like transportation, telecommunications, etc. There may be a need to supplement government efforts for these services even without a breakdown situation. Corporates that provide these services as their regular trade and business can leverage their strength and can come forward with this offering.

For example, a corporate with transportation expertise can offer movement services to nonprofits or the government for the movement of relief items. Amazon's work in Assam Flood Relief in May 2022 is an example of positioning a corporate’s core strength as an offering during disasters.

Employee Volunteering: Corporates can engage employees in their disaster response efforts. Along with making donations, employees can support relief efforts in other ways:

Employees can suggest active local charities and nonprofits to their corporates for funding, donation support, or employee volunteering.

SAP’s response to the Kerala floods in 2018 and Tata’s disaster relief framework involving volunteering on the field are some examples of engaging employees for disaster relief. This can be especially helpful in the corporate’s area of operation as the employees engage in helping their communities, and can even help the corporate gain goodwill of the communities.

What are some partnership models to help channelise disaster response?

Partner with nonprofits: Corporates can activate their nonprofit partner network and look for partners to collaborate with on relief efforts.

These collaborations are often led by nonprofits, where they are supporting two different corporates for one relief effort and have these corporates collaborate indirectly. Other times, corporates may come together to execute a combined response strategy.

Partner with local businesses/vendors: While local businesses/vendors may not have a mandate for a humanitarian response after disasters, they are critical for relief work. Local businesses and vendors, like Kirana shop owners, warehousing businesses, etc. can be reached for quick procurement, kitting, and storage of relief items. Corporates can partner with vendors that may be in their network, or reach out to them through their local nonprofits.

Collaborating with local businesses and vendors can be especially useful for in-kind donations response strategy. Corporates with pre-positioned relief kits may also often choose to partner with warehousing vendors instead of using their warehouses to outsource responsibilities and cut back on time costs. The local business may offer discounts on their items or services since these relief efforts are for a humanitarian cause and involve bulk procurement.

Partner with the Government: The District Disaster Management Authority is at the forefront of response efforts in the area, while other levels of the government are also activated in case of bigger disasters that affect more than one district or sometimes more than one state. Corporations can support the government’s efforts by donating funds to the Chief Minister’s relief funds which are often amplified during disasters, or the PM Relief fund, in case of national-level disasters, like COVID-19. Corporates can also engage with the government to provide in-kind donations or offer services like transportation, telecommunication, data collection and visualisation etc.

Typically, corporates partner with the government through nonprofits, where the corporate supports a nonprofit supporting government’s relief efforts. Also, local representatives of the corporate can engage more deeply with local government actors on the ground like the district authorities or panchayats to activate efforts like employee volunteering.