About MMC
Background and Scope
The purpose of the Multihazard Mitigation Council (MMC) is to reduce the total costs associated with natural and other related hazards to buildings by fostering and promoting consistent and improved multihazard risk mitigation strategies, guidelines, practices, and related efforts. Total costs are considered to include the direct and indirect cost of deaths and injuries; property damage; business, personal, and governmental/civil disruptions; disaster assistance and emergency services; and redundant or duplicative mitigation measures associated with training, planning, programming, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and enforcement.
The scope of the Council’s interests is diverse and reflects the concerns and responsibilities of all those public and private sector entities involved with building and nonbuilding structure and lifeline facility research, planning, design, construction, regulation, management, and utilization/operation and the hazards that affect them. In recognition of this diversity, the Council believes that appropriate multihazard risk reduction measures and initiatives should be adopted by existing organizations and institutions and incorporated into their legislation, regulations, practices, rules, relief procedures, and loan and insurance requirements whenever possible so that these measures and initiatives become part of established activities rather than being super imposed as separate and additional. Further, the Council’s activities are structured to provide for explicit consideration and assessment of the social, technical, administrative, political, legal, and economic implications of its deliberations and recommendations. Oversight is provided by an elected Board Of Direction functioning under the MMC Charter.
The Council was established in 1997 as a voluntary advisory, facilitative body of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), a nonprofit corporation incorporated in the District of Columbia.
Goals
To achieve its purpose, the Council conducts activities and provides the leadership needed to:
- Improve communication, coordination, and cooperation among all entities involved with mitigation.
- Promote deliberate consideration of multihazard risk reduction in all efforts that affect the planning including location, design, construction and operation of the built environment.
- Serve as a focal point for the dissemination of credible information and sage counsel on major policy issues involving multihazard risk mitigation.
Funding
In July 1998, NIBS entered into a 60-month indefinite quantity contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); a number of task orders have been issued under this contract and additional projects have been undertaken for FEMA using other contractual mechanisms. The Council also has conducted projects under a contract with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and under a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
