About
Prepare Your Community (PYC) launched in 2025 as a way to help communities across the nation increase their readiness for (and ability to recover from) natural disasters. We created a completely free-to-use digital kit offering 80 percent of what you need—best practices, templates, grant recommendations, and guides—so you can customize the final 20 percent for your specific community.
Our work is based on The Bainbridge Model, developed from the 15 years of experience of the award-winning Bainbridge Prepares, an emergency preparedness nonprofit serving the community of Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Our Story
Over the past decade, people across the country have reached out to Bainbridge Prepares to ask for help replicating our emergency preparedness work in their own towns and cities.
It became clear that we had something to offer communities just starting out or looking for ways to further develop their readiness.
We decided to create a replication kit that people could customize to meet their own specific needs and address the natural disasters they typically experience.
We started by examining our Bainbridge Prepares success. We identified the key elements of that success, our organizational strategies, and our core values. We then founded PYC as a nonprofit.
Next, we determined how to take those findings and make them accessible to other communities just starting out or looking to take their readiness to the next level.
Finally, we incorporated technology tools to help customize recommendations for our clients.
Our Values
We are
better together.
Volunteerism
is our
strength.
We operate out
of compassion,
not fear.
We are committed
to continuous
improvement.
Practicality
drives us.
Our Team
Founding Board
Scott James
BusinessWeek named Scott James one of America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs and Forbes Magazine profiled him as a Game Changer. One of his companies was a Founding B-Corp. He was awarded a Governor’s Award of Excellence in Service by Washington State for his community preparedness work. The nonprofit he founded—Bainbridge Prepares—was named Volunteer Organization of the Year by the International Association of Emergency Managers and cited as an ideal model to be replicated. FEMA brought Scott to their national training symposium to present his book Prepared Neighborhoods: Creating Resilience One Street at a Time. Scott is currently serving as PYC Executive Director.
Devin is a volunteer firefighter/EMT for Bainbridge Island and a Lead for the BP Medical Reserve Corps. He is chief technology officer at Velocity Training AI, a leading AI gym and wellness wearable company. He's led as a CTO various software and hardware product development teams at such companies; Magnify Digital, Likeness Labs, FutureCrop Exchange, and Screenpush International.
Devin James
Sarah Lane
As Messaging, Media, and Engagement Team Lead for Bainbridge Prepares, Sarah generates most of the website content and supports the organization's 20 teams with outreach materials. She is a writer and editor by trade and has worked for decades in the educational, business, and nonprofit sectors. She also ran a local news website for 5 years and founded a pioneering green e-tail business that sold products in Whole Foods and stores around the globe.
Anne LeSage
Anne LeSage is the Emergency Management Coordinator for the City of Bainbridge Island, WA. She previously served as the Emergency Management Director at the University of California, Irvine. Before that, she worked in Public Health Preparedness with Dallas County Health and Human Services and the Washington State Department of Health. She holds master's degrees in Emergency Management and Public Health and a bachelor's degree in Community Health Education.
Advisors
Sam George
Sam is a retired Microsoft Corporate Vice President and current board member of Bainbridge Prepares as well as a startup board member for Cosmo Tech and Edge IQ. He is a Bainbridge Island resident and Map Your Neighborhood street captain.
Jim Kirk
Jim spent about 40 years orchestrating multinational product development across all the normal corporate functions (from Marketing through Support), the last 20 years being spent at Cisco. As a Boy Scout and Scout Master, “Be Prepared” is an integral part of his life. An aerobatic pilot and air traffic controller long ago, feeling upside down and calm during stress are natural.
Bob Johansen
Bob Johansen is a distinguished fellow with the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley. For more than 50 years, he has helped corporations, universities, and nonprofits prepare for and shape the future, working with organizations including P&G, Walmart, United Rentals, and GlaxoSmithKline. He is the author or co-author of 15 books, including Get There Early, The New Leadership Literacies, Full-Spectrum Thinking, Office Shock, and The Reciprocity Advantage. His 2025 books include Leaders Make the Future: 10 New Skills to Humanize Leadership with Generative AI and Navigating the Age of Chaos. Bob holds degrees from the University of Illinois, Northwestern University, and a master’s degree focused on world religions.