Flood Resilience Network Five-Year Strategic Roadmap

At this Lunch & Learn on May 11, we launched the Hudson Valley Flood Resilience Network (FRN) new five-year Strategic Roadmap. The webinar described FRN’s mission and goals, the new membership structure, and ways we will be expanding the network and its offerings in the years ahead. The Strategic Roadmap PDF is available to view here.

In 2021, the Consensus Building Institute, New York Sea Grant, and the Hudson River Watershed Alliance received grant funding from the Hudson River Estuary Program to develop a strategic roadmap for FRN, while continuing to deliver programming. As the Network continued to develop, the team saw the need to define governance and roles more clearly, including planning for long-term sustainability and leadership transitions across a longer timeframe than the two-year grant cycles. A strong organizational foundation allows FRN to better serve more of its municipal members, especially communities with more limited capacity.

With funding from the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University, the Hudson River Watershed Alliance brought on River Network to co-create the strategic roadmap. River Network is a nationwide capacity-building organization that focuses on climate resilient communities; robust water laws and policies; healthy rivers in agricultural landscapes; clean, safe, affordable drinking water; and strong organizations and leaders across all watersheds.

The strategic roadmap process included an in-depth stakeholder engagement process to better understand the needs and goals of members of the FRN, both to define an effective organizational structure and to develop supportive programming.

This Project is supported by funding from the Hudson River Estuary Program, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, with support from the New York State Environmental Protection Fund, in cooperation with the New York State Water Resources Institute at Cornell University.