The National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) and the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), the two most prominent membership organizations in the US for emergency managers, one again released their joint annual report: Emergency Management Performance Grant: An Evaluation of the Nation’s Return on Investment. I touched on last year’s report in a post I made about metrics and data analysis. Ironically, a couple months prior to that post, I wrote about measuring return on investment through the use of key performance indicators (KPI).
Clearly some of the people who SHOULD have read these didn’t. This year’s report on EMPG return on investment is pretty much the same as last year’s, simply with updated numbers. To call the content of the report an evaluation of return on investment of this important grant program is a considerable overstatement and does nothing to support emergency management. The numbers, such as x number of people trained or how much money was spent on plan development, are largely superficial and don’t really provide any analysis of return on investment. As mentioned in the articles I authored last year which are referenced above, we should be reporting on key performance indicators and drilling down to identify what needs have been met through the efforts and investments. Included in the report are a few anecdotes of ‘EMPG-Supported Success’ that tell more of a story and provide more valuable information than the scant bit of statistical analysis. But really, this report doesn’t tell me anything. It provides little to no benefit to state and local emergency managers, which are the majority membership of both organizations. As a dues-paying member of NEMA, I’m disappointed in this effort and expect better from them. As an emergency manager I continue to be frustrated that we, as a professional practice, continue to accept this kind of information and reporting. Let’s raise our expectations and demand better.
© 2022 Tim Riecker, CEDP
The Contrarian Emergency Manager 