This sample letter provides the project champion and/or planning team lead with example content for use in inviting and encouraging participation in the planning process. All or portions of the sample content can be used as it best applies to the various types of stakeholders being invited.

Dear [STAKEHOLDER],

[SPONSORING ORGANIZATION] is planning for the resilience of our region’s critical infrastructure with the intent to reduce costs and disruptions from hazard events and improve the resilience of our region. Resilience depends on including those public and private entities that supply critical services to communities, the region, and to other operators. As a [CITY OFFICIAL, EMERGENCY MANAGER, COMMUNITY LEADER, CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OWNER/OPERATOR, VITAL INDUSTRY REPRESENTATIVE, MAJOR EMPLOYER, ETC.], we would like your participation either at meetings or in a conversation or interview as we plan over the next [TIME PERIOD]. 

As evidenced by recent events, interactions exist between critical public functions, private industry/business, and critical infrastructure services. These interdependencies cross jurisdictional boundaries have cascading effects, and reach beyond just local impacts. For example, [USE THE FOLLOWING OR INSERT OTHER EXAMPLES SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA: a bourbon warehouse fire in Kentucky resulted not only in local economic loss, but also drinking water quality impacts caused by runoff into streams and rivers that serve as source water for local public water utilities. In another instance, one of the world’s largest aluminum producers was hit with a company-wide cyber-attack affecting their operations across the world. Operating systems at a local U.S. plant failed, requiring a shift to manual operations with significant impact to production and the region’s economy.] 

Resilience requires that we consider multiple threats and hazards and incorporate your knowledge to better understand dependencies, capabilities, and resilience gaps of critical systems within the region that could jeopardize communities’ and private organizations' ability to continue operations and meet critical needs following a disaster.

Benefits of your participation include: 

• An awareness of how hazard events in the region may affect your organization
• A better understanding of your operational dependence on critical infrastructure in the region
• An opportunity to make sure that local [TYPE OF PLANNING SUCH AS: hazard mitigation, economic development, emergency operations, long-term recovery, ETC.] plans consider the operational requirements and vulnerabilities of your organization
• An opportunity to provide your input on local government priorities for reducing the vulnerabilities of utilities, roads, and other infrastructure on which your operations depend
• A chance to build relationships that can reduce the impact of hazards on your operations and speed recovery following a disaster
• An opportunity to jointly identify investment priorities to reduce risk to the community

Your input will be important in identifying resilience solutions that are most effective at reducing risk, are of greater benefit to the region as a whole, and lead to an efficient use of mitigation resources. This planning effort has the potential to provide resilience to your operations by improving critical infrastructure resiliency throughout the region. 

We need your participation to improve the resilience of our region, of which you play an important part.

Sincerely,

[SPONSORING ORGANIZATION REPRESENTATIVE]