Centering Community in Recovery: An Update on the Department of Angels

The Department of Angels is built on a simple idea: that recovery works best when community is at the center of decisionmaking. As Los Angeles continues to grapple with one of the most complex and consequential recovery efforts in its history, we know it is the voices of those most impacted that will ensure we rebuild stronger than before.

This is why, three months since launching, we remain laser-focused on strengthening our connection to survivors. Across Altadena, Pasadena, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu, we directly support a dozen community-based organizations that are deeply trusted, rooted in place, and uniquely positioned to reach those most impacted by the fires. Their leadership is central to our goal of including 100% of fire-impacted community members’ voices in the recovery process. By investing in our partners—with financial resources, digital tools, support for operations, strategic advocacy support, and access to experts—the Department of Angels is working to equip our partners to lead for the long haul. 

Serving the Eaton Fire community, for example, Altagether has launched a team of more than 130 neighborhood captains to ensure every block in Altadena has a neighbor running point on outreach and recovery updates. We’ve backed their community organizing efforts so they can continue to scale their reach—and also provided their members mental health support. We’ve also supported Altadena Rising in extending their biweekly “Collab and Care” convenings of 30–40 local leaders to align on community strategies and elevate shared priorities for long-term rebuilding. Our partner Project Passion has built a civic and direct aid hub, distributing food and essential supplies to over 4,000 residents weekly, while connecting families to recovery resources and pathways for civic engagement. We’ve supported Victory Bible Church, one of the largest Black churches in Altadena, to expand  their longstanding commitment to civic leadership. And we’ve championed the Clergy Community Coalition, a powerful interfaith network uniting over 100 faith institutions and partners across Altadena and Greater Pasadena, as they coordinate fire recovery outreach grounded in faith, trust, and community care.

In the Palisades Fire community, we’ve worked in lockstep with Team Palisades, which has structured a local block captain program with over 100 trained volunteers supporting neighborhood-level coordination. We are providing them resources including a digital platform with data and tools to amplify their community outreach. Resilient Palisades has brought nearly 1,000 residents into a locally-focused climate resilience strategy, and we’ve bolstered their efforts by cohosting  large-scale community workshops. Meanwhile, we are supporting 1Pali to celebrate community culture and rebuild social cohesion through celebratory events, the first of which drew over 1,500 community members.

Across both regions, we’ve heard consistently that online organizing and policy advocacy are essential parts of the strategy. Eaton Fire Survivors Network now connects over 2,000 survivor families through a shared digital platform. We’ve provided strategic advocacy and communications guidance for their grassroots campaign for insurance accountability, which has drawn the attention of state lawmakers and national media. We connected Eaton Fire Residents United to the California State Senate to discuss their fire remediation concerns, resulting in a bill sponsor’s agreement to amend their bill to incorporate their asks. We’ve also introduced our partners at PostFire LA—an online recovery hub that reaches tens of thousands of survivors with timely updates and expert guidance—to government officials, academics, and disaster recovery experts in service of their work to ensure no one is left out of the information loop.

We’ve also equipped each of our partners with access to a shared digital platform to track their outreach and deepen connections. We’ve launched Angels Central, a private collaboration space for organizers to share lessons and stay aligned. These digital spaces complement a steady cadence of in-person gatherings we have hosted—including a meeting that brought together, for the first time, grassroots leaders from across both fire communities to collaborate on next steps in the recovery.

To help impacted community members advance their needs and priorities into concrete policy solutions—and best understand their options—we’ve worked to harness the experience, knowledge, and networks of experts in direct service of top community concerns. Through our community-centered Finance and Insurance Solutions working group, for example, we have convened an interdisciplinary group of leading scientists and public health experts, representatives from all levels of government, private industry, and philanthropy to expand soil toxin testing against uniform, science-based, and bankable protocol and standards to assure community members that their lots are safe and also to enable underwriting of construction costs. We also hosted a roundtable with subject-matter experts on home electrification as community members consider their rebuilding options.

We are encouraged by how these organizing efforts are elevating the voices of survivors and directly shaping the recovery process. Community organizers are helping shape insurance reform and soil safety protocols. Faith leaders are driving participation in rebuilding efforts. And neighborhood captains are distributing FEMA application information and tracking which households still need support.

We know the road ahead is long and recovery systems remain fragmented. Too many community members still lack stable housing and struggle with access to insurance payouts, government aid, and even basic mental health support. But we also know that a crucial element of resilience in recovery is providing those who have suffered unimaginable loss the resources, tools, and support they need.

Centering the community as the driving force behind the recovery lies at the heart of what the Department of Angels exists to do. We are grateful for everything our community partners do to lead the way forward and will stand behind them until the recovery is complete. 

If you’re looking to support this work, we invite you to join us by supporting these leaders directly. Learn more at DeptofAngels.org.