Business Continuity Planning

Regardless of where you are located, a natural disaster can occur at any time. Having a business continuity plan is essential to being able to continue to serve your clients and preserving your organization.   

NPHD’s experience with Hurricane Sandy reinforced the importance of business continuity planning for us. NPHD and our parent organization, the Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island, had excellent systems in place, and our technology staff was able to rapidly develop components for which we had not planned. As a result, we were serving clients at full scale within a week to three weeks (depending on program) after our main offices were totally destroyed in  the storm and our paper records damaged beyond use. 

As a nonprofit capacity builder, we knew we could help other nonprofit organizations by sharing what we knew and had learned. 

We start by assessing the status of your current contingency plans: 

• Is data backed up on a regular basis, and stored offsite/in the cloud?
• Do the right people know where backup files are located and how to access them?
• Are there provisions for employee call-in, and specifications as to which managers call whom, and who has what responsibilities?
• Does everyone have access to key phone numbers?
• Are there provisions for using manual systems and fall-back telephone mechanisms in place?
• What are the plans for alternative work locations?
• Is there a written business continuity plan that addresses all of these, as well as other key requirements? 

We then work one-on-one with your executive director, the director of operations, and the director of IT, to develop a complete business continuity plan that addresses: 

• Communications for a range of possible situations
• Emergency deployment of employees/ Continuity of program operations
• Technology (online storage, data backup and restoration, centralized record access for employees)
• Disaster recovery locations