About the program
Community organisations are the heart of local support networks, especially when disaster strikes. Ensuring these groups are prepared and resilient is essential to keeping critical services running when communities need them most. Regional Business HQ is leading a new program to help community organisations, including Neighbourhood Centres across Queensland, strengthen their bushfire preparedness and continuity planning.
Program Legacy
Participating organisations will be better prepared to respond to bushfire disasters and maintain essential services for vulnerable community members when they are needed most.
A Business Continuity Plan template will be produced that can be rolled out to community organisations across Queensland in early 2027.
The program
Bushfire impacts reach further than the fire front
Even organisations located well away from direct fire risk can find their operations severely disrupted when a bushfire event takes hold.
The impacts can include:
- Staff and volunteer availability: Workers may be evacuated, defending properties, caring for family members, or unable to travel due to road closures, leaving organisations short-staffed at the worst possible time
- Power outages: Extended disruptions affect refrigerated medications, assistive technology, security systems, and the ability to maintain safe environments for vulnerable clients
- Communications failures: Mobile and internet networks can degrade or fail entirely, disrupting client contact, rostering, and coordination with other services
- Surge in demand: Many community organisations become front-line recovery assets during a disaster, facing dramatically increased need exactly when their own capacity is most constrained
- Supply chain disruptions: Consumables, equipment, and contracted services can become unavailable or significantly delayed
- Increased client vulnerability: The people community organisations support are often among the hardest hit, with needs that intensify precisely when usual supports are under pressure
- Staff and volunteer fatigue: Repeated disaster activations (including fires, floods, storms etc.) take a cumulative toll on workforce wellbeing and retention
With the right preparation, these impacts can be anticipated and managed. A practical Business Continuity Plan gives your organisation the tools to keep operating, protect your people, and continue supporting your community when it matters most.
What’s different about this program?
This isn’t a one-off consultation. Participating organisations commit to a structured journey including attending workshops, completing planning work between sessions, and actively building their capacity alongside a small peer group of organisations from across the Bundaberg and Gladstone regions.
Each organisation will finish the program with a fully developed and tested Business Continuity Plan as well as being part of a collaborative group who can support each other in a bushfire disaster.
We are currently accepting Expressions of Interest from community organisations in the Bundaberg and Gladstone regions who would be interested in being part of a pilot group for this program.
Program eligibility
This program is being provided across the following regions:
