Building community partnerships toward a national mitigation effort : inter-organizational collaboration in the Project Impact initiative / Tricia Wachtendorf.

Includes bibliography (p. 8-9)

In 1997, the Federal Emergency Management Agency implemented a national disaster mitigation program in seven pilot communities across the United States. This initiative, Project Impact, was soon expanded to over two hundred city, county, and regional designations. Based on an analysis of one hundred thirty-seven in-depth telephone and face-to-face interviews, community sites visits, seven focus groups, and an extensive analysis of documentary material compiled as part of an ongoing, independent assessment of the initiative's implementation process, this paper closely examines the first objective - community partnership building - and discusses the issues and challenges involved in establishing such relationships under this program