Powering Small Business Success Through Resilience

Disaster preparedness for small businesses suffers from a critical action gap. Despite comprising 99% of all U.S. businesses and employing nearly half of the private sector workforce, only 30% have a formal disaster plan and only 20% maintain a dedicated rainy-day fund. According to new research released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation in partnership with Verizon, 94% of small business owners are confident they can recover from a disaster—yet when revenues suddenly halt, many lack the cash reserves to sustain payroll. U.S. Chamber Foundation Senior Vice President Marc DeCourcey described this as the "payroll cliff," calling it a "huge hole" in national resilience. 

At the U.S. Chamber Foundation's annual Building Resilience conference, DeCourcey moderated a session titled "Powering Small Business Success Through Resilience," joined by Donna Epps, senior vice president and chief responsible business officer at Verizon, and small business owners Natasha Broxton, CEO of Select Auto Parts & Sales, and Mario Jaramillo, founder of The Robot Agency. The panel examined what it takes to move small businesses from confidence to concrete preparedness. 

Overcoming the Preparedness Paradox 

DeCourcey framed the core tension: small businesses anchor local economies, yet most operate without a formal plan for when disaster strikes. Widespread optimism, the research suggests, does not translate into action—and that gap carries real consequences for employees, families, and communities that depend on small businesses to recover. 

Epps described how Verizon's disaster response mission has evolved beyond network restoration toward what she characterized as a "360-degree support system" for communities. That shift led to their Community Disaster Resilience Initiative and a strategic partnership with the U.S. Chamber Foundation focused on helping small businesses prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. The partnership is built around three pillars: research to define the problem, readiness to develop practical content, and reach to distribute resources through Verizon's platform and the Foundation's local networks.

“Small businesses often don't know how to effectively implement preparedness measures,” Epps explained. She detailed how Verizon's partnership with the U.S. Chamber Foundation is designed to address that gap through the Small Business Readiness for Resiliency (R4R) program. R4R gives small business owners a step-by-step preparedness checklist to help them implement a plan. 

Realizing the Value of Proactive Planning 

Formalizing a disaster strategy can feel secondary to the demands of daily operations. For many small business owners, it takes a crisis to reveal the cost of that delay. 

Natasha Broxton's Milwaukee-based auto recycling business has faced major flooding, severe snow emergencies, and widespread power outages in recent years. She had an informal approach to preparedness until she found the R4R checklist. 

The resource helped her identify a critical gap: the absence of a backup energy source. She has since qualified for a grant to secure a backup generator. 

Mario Jaramillo operates businesses in Houston and has navigated hurricanes Ike, Rita, and Harvey, multiple winter storms, and a tornado in 2024. Preparedness, for him, is a matter of experience rather than theory. He emphasized the importance of understanding insurance policies in depth and keeping cash reserves available for payroll disruptions. He also urged business owners to check in on employees and customers during recovery, noting that the path back looks different for everyone. 

A Shared Responsibility 

The panel closed on a note of collective accountability. Epps called on larger organizations to intentionally include small businesses in resilience planning, describing the challenge as "a solvable problem" that requires broad participation. 

"Communities cannot recover until small businesses recover," DeCourcey said. "We're in this together."