Enabling community-led resilience: What it really takes to build and sustain local strength 

“Shared responsibility” has become a catchphrase in disaster resilience, frequently invoked but rarely unpacked. As communities face increasingly complex and compounding crises, however, the question isn’t whether responsibility should be shared, but how. What does it take to genuinely enable communities to lead? And what does shared responsibility look like when the people most affected are also those best placed to respond?  

This article offers insights on these questions, drawing on Nous Group’s recent evaluation of community-led resilience efforts in Northern NSW for the Australian Red Cross. It surfaces the conditions that allow community-led resilience to take root, and the tensions that can stall its growth. 

Communities are often the first responders, the slowest recoverees, and the most enduring stewards of wellbeing. Enabling community-led resilience is not as simple as handing over responsibility, but demands deliberate design, sustained external support, and a deep understanding of what makes local initiatives thrive. 

Over the course of our work with communities in Northern NSW, Nous has identified six interdependent enablers that shape how community-led resilience is built, sustained and scaled. 

1. Clear shared purpose. A compelling purpose that reflects local priorities and values, legitimises action, galvanises participation, and sustains momentum. Without it, efforts risk fragmentation or fatigue.
2. Strong social connections. Communities with high social capital mobilise faster and more effectively. Trust, familiarity and informal networks provide the scaffolding for resilience to grow.
3. Grounded local leadership. Resilience thrives when leadership is rooted in local knowledge and shared across individuals. Adaptive, inclusive leadership models help sustain momentum and avoid burnout.
4. Volunteer capability. Technical and relational skills reduce the operational burden and enable effective coordination. Access to training, tools and peer learning is essential.
5. Fit-for-purpose governance. As initiatives mature, clear roles, decision-making protocols and accountability mechanisms help maintain legitimacy and scale impact.
6. Integration with formal systems. Community-led efforts are most effective when recognised and supported by emergency services and local government. Integration enables coordination, resource sharing and mutual trust. 

These enablers are mutually reinforcing: progress in one strengthens the others, while gaps can constrain overall impact. For example, skilled volunteers may be underutilised without trust or shared purpose, and committed leaders may falter without clear governance.  

Importantly, community-led resilience doesn’t follow a linear path. Foundational enablers like shared purpose and social connection often emerge early, while governance and system integration tend to develop later, as legitimacy builds. The focus though isn’t on sequencing, it’s on cultivating a tailored balance that reflects each community’s unique needs, capacities and stage of readiness.

We saw this dynamic clearly in the Northern Rivers. On one side of a valley, a well-established CRT had grown from decades of social connection and grounded local leadership. Its purpose was clear, its volunteer base strong, and its relationship with SES and RFS deeply reciprocal. The group had become indispensable, providing hyper-local intelligence and rapid mobilisation when it mattered most. 

Just across the valley, the picture was different. Two new residents, inspired by what they had seen, set out to establish a CRT of their own. But without the same depth of relationships or locally anchored leadership, early activity didn’t translate into community buy-in. Volunteer engagement remained low, momentum wavered, and the initiative struggled to take root. 

The contrast is instructive. Community-led resilience cannot be replicated by simply copying structures or tools. It grows when the underlying enablers – relationships, leadership, purpose, capability – are cultivated intentionally and in a way that reflects each community’s history, dynamics and readiness. When these foundations are strong, resilience flourishes; when they’re not, even well-intentioned efforts can falter. 

Community-led resilience is a necessary evolution in how Australia approaches emergency management. As disasters become more frequent and complex, the limitations of top-down approaches are increasingly exposed.  

To truly enable community-led resilience, leaders in the emergency management system must reframe their role from directing to enabling, from delivering to stewarding. The patience and humility required to move at the pace of community can feel unfamiliar, uneven, even uncomfortable. But it’s precisely this shift that defines the future of resilience.  

Here's the question. What does “shared responsibility” really mean? There is no clean ratio of responsibility between community and agencies, no universal formula for who should do what. Each community brings its own dynamics, tensions, and capacities. Some are ready to lead. Others need time to heal, connect, or regroup.  

The challenge is to cultivate a model with enough flexibility to respond to these differences and enough humility to listen, guide, adapt, and walk alongside. Shared responsibility is not a handover. It’s a relationship. Like all relationships, it requires trust, negotiation, and a willingness to evolve together. The country's future, in the fact of drastically changing circumstances, may depend on it. 

This reframing invites a set of provocations for those designing, funding, or supporting community-led resilience: 

• Are we investing in the social infrastructure of resilience? Funding often prioritises physical assets, but trust, leadership and cohesion are just as critical.
• Do our systems recognise informal leadership? Many community leaders don’t see themselves as such. We need models that allow leadership to emerge organically.
• Are we designing for sustainability or just activation? Community-led resilience needs ongoing support, such as mentoring, peer learning, and practical tools.
• Can we shift from reactive coordination to proactive influence? Some community groups are already advocating for broader wellbeing outcomes, like housing, food security and community services. This is resilience in its fullest form. 

The insights shared in this piece, and the answers to the questions above it has put forward, are not a blueprint. They're a provocation to thinking. They suggest a way to navigate the messy, vital work of enabling resilience that is truly community-led.  

The most enduring resilience is shaped by those who most need it. Our role is to invest in what works, support what’s emerging, and steward the process, in rhythm with the communities it serves. 

Get in touch to discuss emergency management and how your organisation can help contribute to community-led resilience.

Connect with Rachel Flitman and Carlos Blanco on LinkedIn.

This piece was written with the input of Callum Vernon and Benedict Kyle.