"Every $1 spent on mitigation saves…”

Statistics like these...we all use them!

They're common-sense arguments; our attempts to prove how "your $$$ investments in mitigation will prevent larger future $$$ costs in disaster impacts."

I know, I'm no stranger...you'll find versions of them in my textbooks if you look.

But can you blame us - the emergency management professionals? After how we’ve struggled, year after year, to justify some resilience spending ‘value-add’ to our decision-makers?

After all - what speaks louder in budgeting decisions than currency-based bargains?

We're so 'all-in' on this approach, in fact, that as time goes on we seek (and cite) ever-increasing $$$ value ratios in our messaging...knowing full-well that inflation has nothing to do with it. Look at our record:

• Multi-Hazard Mitigation Council (2005): “$4 in future benefits for every $1 invested”

  
  

• National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) (2017): ”Resilient design saves an average of $6 for every $1 spent”

  
  

• NIBS (2019): “Mitigation […] saves up to $13 per $1 Invested”

  
  

• UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)(2025): “Every $1 invested in [DRR] can save up to $15 in [recovery]!”

IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT, defensible cost-benefit ratios do have value. Anyone who's sought a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant knows this.

But far too often, such arguments serve only to perpetuate among our constituents how we - the EM community - is out of touch with what THEY - the community - actually values.

Because when it comes to linking intrinsic values to dollars, there's no arguable “1 to 1”.

Consider how the loss of one family's $1M home might compare to the loss of another family's $50K home, to those two families.

Ask these families to describe their loss without ever citing a "dollar value". You'll find, their losses are equal. "1 to 1"

"$1M = $50k"

They've equally "lost their home."

They're equally "displaced."

They're equally "traumatized."

Yet viewed in the context of these “every $1 in mitigation saves” ratios, communities might prioritize saving expensive homes over modestly-valued ones.

As if the real impact was ever some measure of home value.

I'd argue that - taken 1 to 1 - a mitigation intervention that saves 10 modest homes is worth 10-fold the intervention that saves one costly one - even if a cost-benefit analysis finds it a fraction the value, financially.

Our (the EM sector's) prioritizations - which focus on the tangible, the 'monetizable' - too often feels arbitrary to the publics we serve.

It's not that the public doesn't "care" about money. It's that they care about so much more. About community vision, about common objectives. 

About quality-of-life.

Take urban shade tree planting, to mitigate extreme heat. No building saved. No damages prevented. 

Viewed as a ‘returns-based investment’, with a sub-$1 cost-benefit analysis factor, such projects don't often "sell" very well. 

Captured in the intangible – as a factor of ‘quality of life’ – their value is immeasurable.

I'll keep saying it: we need to redefine resilience. Values-Based Emergency Management (VBEM) does just that.