The Initiative

The Gulf Research Program (GRP) seeks to build the capacity of local stakeholders to better collaborate in adapting to disasters that affect the health and resilience of their communities. Through its Adaptive Capacities for Transformation Initiative in Harris County Precincts 1 and 2, TX (ACT Houston), the GRP is engaging with community experts in the planning, implementation, evaluation, and sustainability of solutions that advance a shared vision for disaster adaptation.

Launched in 2025, ACT Houston brought together individuals from local nonprofits, foundations, academia, and government to co-create such a vision and co-plan for solutions that could advance it. Using a 4-step scientific process, the GRP and experts developed an evidence-based and community-driven framework of priorities for What Communities Need to Deal with Disasters that affect the health and resilience of communities throughout Houston.

• Step 1: Brainstorming

• Step 2: Sorting and Rating

• Step 3: Connecting

• Step 4: Storytelling and Strategizing

Each step required active participation from stakeholders (herein referred to as “participants”) and is described in the section below.

Four Steps of ACT Houston Phase 1: Planning

Brainstorming: Collectively, participants brainstormed answers to the prompt: “From your perspective, what do the communities you regularly engage with need to ‘deal with’ the effects of disasters?” The GRP also reviewed research and local plans to identify answers to the same question. Responses were cleaned to ensure each captured a single unique priority and compiled into one list.

Sorting and rating: Individually, participants sorted and rated a final list of 70 priorities. Each participant sorted priorities into thematic groups that best made sense to them and then rated each priority on two values:

• Importance: How important is this priority for the communities you work with?
• Happening: To what extent is this priority currently happening?

Ratings identified assets (high importance, high happening) and gaps (high importance, low happening). The GRP then assessed gaps for fit with its strategic plan and funding priorities to identify “highly aligned” gaps for investment.

Connecting: Collectively, participants reviewed the data products created from the exercise, related findings to their on-the-ground experience, and discussed practical uses of the data. They also indicated which “highly aligned” gaps they wanted to advance. Based on this input, the GRP issued a planning grant to support collaborations that design solutions.

Storytelling and strategizing: Using storytelling, participants explained how gaps and related priorities interact to help communities deal with disasters. They then shared, provided feedback, and refined planning grant ideas and strategies for engaging partners and stakeholders.

Next steps: The GRP will use the storytelling outputs to shape an implementation grant for selected projects.