This focus was actualized through collaborative work on the city's FEMA funded Natural Hazards Mitigation plan (which built on the city's ReBuild Springfield plan, commissioned by the Springfield Redevelopment Authority and DevelopSpringfield, and facilitated by Concordia from 2011-2012 after the Tornado), a series of city vulnerability assessments, collaborative work on the city's successful application to the National Disaster Resilience Competition, and the development of the City's Strong, Healthy & Just: Climate Action & Resilience Plan.  Through years of interactive community-driven presentations, individual interviews, workshops, group meetings, on-line engagement and outreach to build stakeholder willingness and participation followed by a series of community meetings, focus groups, stakeholder interviews, and culminating in a phase one Community Resilience Building (CRB) Workshop in May 2017 followed by phase 2 in April 2018.Since 2015, the city of Springfield has been collaborating with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, Arise for Social Justice, the Public Health Institute of Western Mass, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, numerous Springfield-based businesses and organizations and the federal government  to increase awareness of risks associated with extreme weather and natural and climate-related hazards, working to assess the risks, strengths and vulnerabilities within the City of Springfield. 

The results of the CRB workshops are summarized in a Risk Matrix (at the end of this document).  The Risk Matrix was integrated into the CRB Workshop process to provide both decision-support and risk visualization for the City of Springfield. The report provides an overview of the top hazards, current concerns and challenges, current strengths, and actions to improve the City of Springfield's resilience to natural and climate-related hazards today and in the future. Much more detail is available in the Complete Risk Matrix, the City's recently completed Strong, Healthy, and Just: Springfield's Climate Action & Resilience Plan and Strategic Action Chart, the City's updated Vulnerability Assessment, the City's 2016 federally approved Hazard Mitigation Plan and on www.resilientspringfield.org.