The Challenge
Rebuild is a national membership organization built by and for survivors of hurricanes, floods, wildfires and tornadoes. It grew out of Organizing Resilience, which has supported local disaster recovery leaders and organizations since 2021. GPS Influence has partnered with the team from the beginning, helping build a national coalition, elevate survivor voices in local and national media, and drive rapid-response campaigns that hold government leaders accountable. Our work has helped bring survivors from disaster-stricken communities into the national policy debate, generate media attention around failures in federal disaster assistance, and build pressure for reforms to FEMA and the broader recovery system. Today, we’re helping Rebuild turn individual survivor experiences into a coordinated national movement with a stronger voice in Washington and the power to demand lasting change.
Our Role
GPS Influence serves as Rebuild’s rapid-response communications partner, media strategist, and capacity-builder, ensuring disaster survivors have a voice in the decisions that shape their recovery. Every disaster creates an opportunity to demand change, yet too often survivors are left out of decisions about how recovery happens, what assistance is available, and when help arrives. Against a backdrop of increasingly destructive disasters, federal funding cuts, and proposed changes to FEMA, we help Rebuild elevate survivor voices, shape media narratives, hold decision-makers accountable, and influence local and national policy debates. Our work positions survivors not simply as victims of disasters, but as powerful advocates driving reform of America’s disaster recovery system.
Our Approach
We create a consistent visibility drumbeat, establishing Rebuild and its survivor advocates as leading voices on disaster relief and recovery. We drive earned media coverage through press events, targeted media outreach, op-eds, and original research that amplify survivors’ voices, connect local recovery challenges to federal policy debates, generate support, and spotlight organizations leading recovery efforts on the ground. Just as importantly, we keep the story alive long after the cameras leave, using disaster anniversaries, recovery milestones, and successful solutions to sustain attention, hold decision-makers accountable, and build momentum for lasting reform.
Results
- So far in 2026, earned media efforts resulted in 420 articles with an estimated 1.1M views.
- Created branding and built websites around individual campaigns, such as the Fund Texas Forever campaign, which sought to establish long-term relief for the victims of the devastating Central Texas floods, in 2025 and 2026.
- Placed op-eds both locally and nationally, including in Newsweek.
- Media trained survivors for interviews, securing coverage in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, Bloomberg, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Associated Press, and more.
Outcome
Survivor leaders across more than 10 states are telling their own recovery stories in local and national media, establishing Rebuild as a trusted resource for reporters and a leading voice in advancing real solutions to America’s disaster recovery challenges.
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- Climate
- Disaster Relief
- Survivor Advocacy