Since 2009, the California Resiliency Alliance (CRA) has evolved alongside California’s changing risk landscape — always anchored by the belief that the professionals responsible for keeping organizations and communities functioning deserve better information, stronger connections, and a clearer view of the risks ahead.
In the aftermath of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and major California wildfires, communities across the nation began to recognize the critical interdependencies between public and private sectors — and how poorly equipped existing structures were to bridge them.
The Business Executives for National Security (BENS) responded by launching regional public-private partnership councils across the U.S. In California, the devastating 2007 Southern California wildfires gave these early efforts new urgency, laying the foundation for what would become a dedicated statewide organization.
In 2009, the CRA was established as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. In its early years, CRA worked with over 100 companies to support California’s emergency management, public health, and homeland security agencies — and played a key role in forming the Business Operations Center (BOC) within the State Operations Center, establishing a vital mechanism for integrating private sector support into public sector response.
As California’s risk environment and emergency management structures evolved, so did the CRA. When CalOES established its Office of Private Sector and NGO Engagement in 2015, the CRA made a deliberate strategic shift — stepping back from operational coordination to concentrate on what it could do that no one else was: bridging cross-sector divides through trusted information, curated insights, and sustained relationships.
This shift required a new level of analytical depth. As global events increasingly produced local consequences — pandemics, geopolitical instability, infrastructure failures — the CRA deepened its information-sharing capabilities and expanded its scope to match the interconnected nature of the threats California faced.
Founded as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit emerging from a BENS regional council
Strategic pivot: shifted focus from response coordination to strategic preparedness and cross-sector information sharing
Subscriber network grew from ~200 to more than 1,200 — a sixfold increase reflecting sustained demand for trusted, cross-sector resilience information
Recognized across California’s public, private, and nonprofit sectors as a trusted, neutral connector and source of contextualized resilience information
California’s risk environment will continue to grow more complex. The threats are accelerating, the interdependencies are deepening, and the cost of planning in silos is rising. The CRA’s role — as a trusted, neutral connector working across sectors, hazards, and disciplines — has never been more relevant.
We remain committed to the work: curating and contextualizing the information that matters, building the connections that don’t happen on their own, and helping California’s planners and decision-makers see further ahead. That is what we have always done. It is what we will continue to do.
