Resources for Business Emergency & Continuity Plans 

1. Business Emergency Plans

American Red Cross www.redcross.org

• Preparing Your Business for the Unthinkable - Basics of emergency planning

• Prepare Your Workplace - Business emergency planning

• Take a Class - Information on Red Cross training courses

CERF www.craftemergency.org

• Artists' Career Resources - Resource listing

FEMA www.fema.gov

• Emergency Management Guide for Business & Industry - Oriented to larger businesses, but contains much good information on risks and planning

• Plan Ahead - Disaster planning main page — not specific to businesses, but useful information

• A part of FEMA, Ready.gov has a section of its website devoted to business emergency planning: www.ready.gov 

Heritage Emergency National Task Force www.heritagepreservation.org

• Resources for Emergency Planning and Preparedness - Emergency planning guide, focusing on protecting institutional art collections and family treasures. Useful in thinking about protecting your artwork

Institute for Business & Home Safety www.disastersafety.org/

• A wealth of information on business and home safety and disaster preparedness. Information is concise and accessible

Small Business Administration www.sba.gov

• Disaster Preparedness for Small Businesses - Disaster preparedness resources for small businesses, including A Disaster Planning Guide for Small Business Owners

Sample Plans

• Ready.gov has a printable pdf form to fill in as a planning aid, and tips for every business to be prepared.

• Sample Disaster Plan - From Texas C-BAR  www.texascbar.org  sample plan is for nonprofits, but seems general enough for an artist's business with employees (MS Word document).

2. Business Continuity Plans

• Wikipedia has a good explanation of what constitutes a business continuity plan: www.wikipedia.org (enter “business continuity planning” in the Search field).

• WikiHow has a basic business continuity plan guide: www.wikihow.com (Enter “business continuity planning” in the Search field).

• The Florida Division of Emergency Management’s Business Disaster Plan (www.floridadisaster.org, go to Get a Business Plan), is a free online tool for creating and storing a business continuity plan.

• Ready.gov, a part of FEMA, has a section of its website devoted to business emergency planning: www.ready.gov  (go to Ready Business).

• From Disaster Recovery Journal, “The Small And Medium Size Business’s Guide to a Successful Continuity Program”: www.drj.com/special/smallbusiness/article1-01.html.

• The Institute for Business & Home Safety's Open for Business continuity plan is a great resource: www.disastersafety.org (go to Open for Business). The Basic version is an online training series. The Online version is designed so you can store the results of your continuity plan online. It is, however, only available through the user's insurance company. See if your insurance company is a member of IBHS (go to About/IBHS Members/IBHS Member Companies)  

Sample Plans

• Open for Business - Institute for Business & Home Safety's business continuity planning forms in pdf and word format, and video training sessions (you must sign up for these).