SBP
30 Jan, 2026
Recovery and Resilience: 2025 SBP Impact Report
Reviewing our biggest victories of 2025 and our goals for building a more resilient future.
LETTER FROM THE CEO
In 2025, SBP made tremendous progress helping communities shorten the time between disaster and recovery. As we look ahead, we see even greater opportunities to deepen our impact, strengthening readiness and resilience before disasters strike, and accelerating rebuilding afterward.
- Adopting a streamlined operational framework centered on who we serve: high-risk, low-capacity communities across the Southern United States and the homeowners in those communities with the greatest unmet rebuilding needs.
- Fully leveraging our FEMA appeals expertise and track record, and our innovative bridge loan product, for the benefit of all homeowners we serve.
- Expanding the reach of our Resilience Fellows Program to provide last-mile capacity and expertise, anticipating greater responsibility at state and local levels of government.
- Reigniting an aggressive organizational advancement strategy that builds on the celebration of our 20th anniversary and the unveiling of new branding for SBP next year.
SBP has had an enduringly powerful mission and established an impressive track record of delivering impact in its first 20 years. I’m excited to help take the organization to the next level to meet the increasing need and demand (by homeowners and communities alike) for our work and am deeply grateful for committed and aligned partners like you. Onward!
Carol Markowitz
CEO
IN THIS REPORT:
SBP’s Impact on Hurricanes Helene and Milton Recovery
Disaster Recovery for Homeowners: Victories and Goals
Community Resilience: Victories and Goals
Growth and Leadership
One Year Later: SBP’S Impact on Hurricanes Helene and Milton Recovery
In September 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, wreaking devastation across the state with destructive storm surge and high winds. The storm and resulting flooding caused more than $78 billion in destruction across the Southeastern United States – particularly in Western North Carolina – damaging over 115,000 homes. Ten days later, Hurricane Milton struck coastal communities in Florida that were still reeling from the impact of Helene.
One year later, the news cycle has largely moved on. Long-lasting stability, however, is still months or years away for impacted families without the means to drive their own recoveries. Shifting from response to recovery, our team has remained committed to meeting survivors’ critical needs throughout 2025.
2025 HIGHLIGHTS
- 736 FEMA appeals filed on behalf of Helene and Milton survivors
- $3.09 million FEMA assistance unlocked
- 195 survivors returned home
- 498 local and state leaders trained
In the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, SBP’s community of donors and partners made it possible for us to open an individual recovery site in Tampa early this year. With the help of a full-time local team, AmeriCorps members, and volunteers, we have exceeded our Tampa rebuilding goal for 2025 with 78 families returned home to date.
Disaster Recovery for Homeowners
Victories
FEMA Appeals Assistance for Under-Resourced Families
SBP helps disaster-impacted homeowners navigate FEMA’s complex application and appeals process, ensuring they secure the maximum amount of funding they’re eligible for. These funds help meet immediate and long-term recovery needs, such as repairing a roof, replacing essential belongings, or finding safe temporary shelter.
Since undertaking this initiative in 2021, our team has unlocked $9.12 million in assistance for disaster survivors who otherwise would have gone without safe and stable housing. This figure includes $4.06 million in assistance this year alone for 1,172 individuals — our greatest annual impact to date. With an average of $6,400 more per homeowner, this funding accelerates the client’s recovery process; for those in our rebuilding program, it allows SBP to stretch every dollar further by applying the client’s secured FEMA awards directly to repair costs on their home.
Leading the Way on FORTIFIED Roofing
For communities that are hard-hit by frequent wind events, simply rebuilding is not enough – SBP understands that we must build back resiliently. Thanks to significant support from Travelers, SBP has long incorporated resilient building methods such as IBHS FORTIFIED roofing standards into construction projects to ensure the homes we rebuild can withstand future storms.
FORTIFIED roofs are specifically designed to prevent damage that commonly occurs from high winds, providing our clients with savings through avoided costs and, in many cases, lowered monthly insurance costs. As a pioneer in resilient home rebuilding, SBP has brought over 700 roofs to FORTIFIED standards across Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Puerto Rico since 2019.
Every Step of the Way: From Mucking and Gutting to a Joyful Homecoming
After Hurricane Ida (2021) devastated Vina Bosley’s house, tearing apart the roof and causing extensive interior damage, her family was left without a safe place to live. The home sat in disrepair for over two years, a painful reminder of the storm’s impact. Then Vina found SBP. Starting with a volunteer event in 2024, when our team mucked, gutted, and remediated mold, SBP stood with Vina’s family through every phase of their recovery. In August 2025, after a complete rebuild, SBP welcomed Vina home. This long-term project was only possible due to the flexible support of our partners who share SBP’s commitment to walking alongside under-resourced families through the full recovery journey.
“This house is our home, our FAMILY HOME. From childbirth to graduations, we’ve shared so many cherished memories here. No words can describe how excited we are to get our home back and continue creating long-lasting memories.”
—Vina Bosley, SBP Client
Goals
SBP operates within an ecosystem defined by unpredictability: wind and flooding events arise quickly, storm magnitudes and paths change rapidly, and support systems shift alongside the political climate. What remains consistent is our urgent mission to respond to the most vulnerable communities while enhancing resilience before storms hit. Whatever 2026 brings, SBP is committed to the following individual recovery strategic priorities:
- SBP will continue to rebuild homes with the significant efficiencies enabled by the Toyota Production System, rebuilding to resilient standards so that homeowners have the security of a home better fortified against future disaster.
- All homeowner clients will have the opportunity to benefit from SBP’s FEMA appeals assistance program, whereby we typically double the initial FEMA disaster assistance award–benefiting low-income clients who would otherwise struggle to recover while stretching recovery dollars further.
- In select markets, SBP will scale our Recovery Acceleration Fund, an innovative bridge loan product that allows clients to finance their rebuilding at no cost to the homeowner.
Community Resilience
Victories
Increasing Preparedness and Resilience for High-Risk Communities
SBP believes that all successful resilience and recovery programs begin and end at the local level. SBP empowers government and community leaders, households, and businesses with the tools and strategies needed to reduce disaster impact, accelerate recovery, and build long-term resilience.
2025 HIGHLIGHTS
- Trained 665 local and state leaders from across the nation to better prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate against natural disasters.
- Shared critical resources and capacity to 28 partner organizations across 13 states resulting in 216 homes being rebuilt/repaired.
- Provided over 12,900 individuals with preparedness resources and education to be better equipped to take preparedness action when disasters happen.
- Delivered over 60 preparedness buckets to support households during disasters.
Resilience Fellows Across the Region
Since 2010, 99.5% of congressional districts in the United States have been impacted by a federally-declared disaster. Though major climate events are nearly universal across the nation, their impact on communities vary widely. Historically, philanthropic and federal recovery dollars flow disproportionately into high-population areas that are better equipped to recover, while under-resourced small- to medium-sized communities are overlooked. More than five dozen communities within the Gulf South are at high risk of experiencing a major natural disaster, yet are severely limited in resources, information, and personnel needed to effectively prepare for and respond to such an event.
SBP Resilience Fellows are hired locally by local and state governments within high-risk communities, and provide their host communities with added capacity through SBP advisory services, practical training, and increased resources through competitive disaster-related grant proposals. Thanks to support from Walmart, Liberty Mutual, Toyota, UPS, and CSAA, SBP currently has 10 fellows supporting their local communities.
2025 HIGHLIGHTS
- $3 million secured: Funding infrastructure improvements to critical utilities in Bolivar Peninsula, Texas
- $6 million secured: Funding flood mitigation projects in West Virginia
- $26 million secured: Funding improved water resources and infrastructure in Massachusetts
Community-Driven Resilience in Mobile, AL
As the Gulf Coast continues to face heightened climate and weather-related threats, early collaboration among public agencies, nonprofits, and residents is critical to ensuring safety and resilience. In a proactive effort to strengthen local disaster preparedness, SBP Fellow Madeleine Dotson served as a driving force behind Mobile, Alabama’s first-ever City-Wide Emergency Action Plan published in April 2025. She, along with SBP Advisors and support staff, then hosted the city’sunified emergency tabletop exercise in May ahead of the 2025 hurricane season. During the exercise, city leaders ran through a detailed scenario involving a major hurricane approaching Mobile. Participants walked through their roles and responsibilities according to the newly published Emergency Action Plan, including evacuation procedures, shelter activation, emergency communications, and long-term recovery plans – ultimately preparing 2,200 local officials to coordinate critical services for over 200,000 residents in the event of a major storm.
SBP’s ongoing partnership with the City of Mobile’s Office of Resilience includes the placement of a Disaster Resilience Fellow, reinforced by dedicated in-house SBP Advisors.Together, this team delivered more than 400 hours of pro bono consulting and training—valued at over $60,000—and helped generate more than $8 million in additional grant funding in a single year. As a result of the Emergency Action Plan development and targeted training, the City of Mobile earned StormReady Certification, strengthening its preparedness and public awareness for severe weather events.
Partnerships in Preparedness
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, our team of expert practitioners has traversed the United States in 2025 to provide technical assistance, training, and preparedness education to community leaders and individuals. This reach includes:
- An ongoing partnership with AARP, in which SBP has collaborated with local organizations in 11 states this year to provide preparedness training to older adults in rural areas–a population that often faces the highest risks and receives the fewest resources during a natural disaster.
- Launching a campaign in California, Texas, and other heat-prone states to reduce the risks of extreme heat – the most deadly climate threat in the United States – on vulnerable populations.
- With support from Toyota, providing technical assistance to community organizations in Central Texas recovering from unprecedented flooding in July.
Goals
Recent research from the U.S Chamber of Commerce indicates that every dollar spent on resilience investments and disaster preparedness saves $13 in economic impact to disaster-impacted communities. Building resilience in under-resourced small- to medium-sized communities will drive SBP’s strategy in 2026, with progress measured against several goals:
- SBP will launch a multi-year expansion of our Resilience Fellows initiative, aiming to place Fellows in 10 additional target communities by the end of 2026.
- As we expand our reach, we will also deepen supportive services within each partner community through technical assistance, consulting, and training and education.
- SBP will systematically measure increasing resilience within each Fellows community against FEMA’s Resilience Maturity Model.
Growth and Leadership
Hurricane Katrina: Twenty Years of Lessons Learned
August 29, 2025 marked 20 years since Hurricane Katrina changed the Gulf Coast — and the country — forever. It was a defining moment of loss, upheaval, and, ultimately, resilience. In the two decades since, the path to recovery has been long, complex, and shaped by thousands of hands and hearts. SBP, which was launched in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, paused to reflect on the anniversary this year through a special series of recovery stories – voices that speak to the depth of the struggle, and the strength that has carried communities forward.
Looking Forward
As SBP closes our second decade, we are entering an ambitious chapter of growth and expansion of innovative programs empowering high-risk communities at the frontlines of climate disasters. At the beginning of 2025, SBP’s Board of Directors appointed Carol Ahn Markowitz as the organization’s new Chief Executive Officer. Carol brings nearly 25 years of entrepreneurial and leadership experience through roles including Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Finance at Loyola University New Orleans and Founding Executive Director of the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute.
In 2026, with Carol at the helm, SBP will commemorate our 20th anniversary – two decades in which our organization has grown into a national leader in long-term recovery and resilience. Our team will be marking this milestone with events throughout the year celebrating the resilience of our clients, the passion of our volunteers, and the commitment of our partners.