South Carolina is home to 10 federally designated Community Disaster Resilience Zones — communities where climate risk and social vulnerability are high, but resources to act are often limited. Finding the right funding, technical expertise, and partners can feel like navigating a maze. That is the problem the Southeast Navigator Network program was built to solve.
A Navigator for Resilience
The Shi Institute’s navigator, Adelaide Bates, serves South Carolina as part of Climate Ready America, a national effort to ensure that every community, regardless of size or resources, can access the support it needs to prepare for climate impacts. Working alongside local leaders, Adelaide helps communities identify funding opportunities, connect with technical experts, and build the local leadership needed to carry resilience work forward over the long term. Think of it as having a head coach: someone who brings the right players together, keeps everyone focused on the goal, and provides continuity across what can be a long and complex process.
Building Resilience Across the State
Since launching, the Navigator has supported resilience work across eight jurisdictions, helped leverage $845,000 in investment, and delivered 16 no-cost technical assistance projects to South Carolina communities. More than 130 local staff members, elected officials, and appointed officials have participated in Resilience 101 trainings (co-hosted with the South Carolina Office of Resilience), building the foundational knowledge needed for long-term action.
The impact is tangible across the state. In Beaufort County, the Navigator helped launch the Southern Lowcountry Resilience Collaborative and is advancing county-wide living shoreline implementation. In Bluffton, the team supported the town in adopting South Carolina’s first local wetlands protections following a U.S. Supreme Court decision. In Goose Creek, a community food forest is now underway, North Charleston’s developing an urban forest master plan, and in Summerville, the city’s planning a microgrid for their local public safety complex.
Fostering Future Climate Action Leaders
Our Navigator’s capacity is expanded through the expertise and energy of our faculty and students. This also provides enhanced hands-on training for Furman students, stronger retention of community resilience talent for our state and applied community-centered research by Furman faculty.
From Climate and Heat Adaptation Fellows to students in Sustainability Science classes, we’re preparing the next generation of climate action leaders. Read more about the student experience.
A project of the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University, in partnership with Geos Institute, as part of the Southeast Navigator Network and Climate Ready America.