Portland Preparedness Data Almanac

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This data almanac is established to make available and accessible all salient Community Preparedness data collected by PBEM, sectioned into calendar years. PBEM does not make raw data downloadable because raw data includes Personally Identifiable Information (PII). However, where possible, PBEM breaks datasets into Portland Districts and neighborhoods to allow community leaders in those areas to make informed and data-driven decisions about emergency planning and disaster response strategies.

Important note: The data in this almanac is presented by calendar year, not the City's fiscal year (which runs from July 1 to June 30).





Looking for the most up to date info on which NETs are active? You'd find that in the NET Team Directory.

The almanac is a data storehouse for point in time data. The almanac does not include year to year comparisons or dynamic data, which may be found on the dashboards or maps below:

Dashboard or Map
Portland NET Team Directory
BEECN Status Dashboard
Community Preparedness Budget Dashboard (presented by fiscal year, not calendar year)
PBEM Annual Volunteer Customer Service Survey Results
PBEM Community Outreach Tracking



2025 PBEM Community Preparedness Program Data

2024 PBEM Community Preparedness Program Data

2023 PBEM Community Preparedness Program Data

How to Read the Data

This section guides readers on how to read and interpret the numbers that are not straightforward.

Logged %

Indicates the percentage of volunteers in the subject dataset that logged any hours at all (x > 0).

Pareto Numbers

Pareto Numbers are based on the Pareto Principle; the notion that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. For volunteer purposes, it is an index of volunteer activity. In strict mathematical terms, the Pareto Number indicates what percentage of active volunteers are logging 80% of the volunteer hours. If your NET community is a beehive, the Pareto Number answers: how loudly is that beehive buzzing?

The number indexes volunteer community activity in the respect that a low number would indicate very few active volunteers are actually engaged with programming. This would imply several prospective problems in that volunteer community, not the least of which include:

  1. Low volunteer activity;
  2. A small "hard core" of volunteers burning themselves out carrying the activity and volunteer labor of the other volunteers;
  3. A volunteer roster populated with inactive volunteers;
  4. A volunteer community where few of the volunteers know each other or regularly work together (particularly troublesome for disaster response volunteers).

Example: A Tale of Two Teams

Let's say there are two teams: Team 1 and Team 2. Each has ten volunteers. In a year, Team 1 logged 105 hours and Team 2 logged 100 hours. On the face of it, those numbers might suggest Team 1 was slightly more active than Team 2 in that year. But if we pull the hours of each individual team member, the picture looks like this:

Team 1 Team 2
Volunteer Hours Volunteer Hours
Vol. 1a 85 Vol. 2a 20
Vol. 1b 6 Vol. 2b 17
Vol. 1c 5 Vol. 2c 15
Vol. 1d 3 Vol. 2d 15
Vol. 1e 3 Vol. 2e 12
Vol. 1f 0 Vol. 2f 11
Vol. 1g 0 Vol. 2g 7
Vol. 1h 0 Vol. 2h 3
Vol. 1i 0 Vol. 2i 0
Vol. 1j 0 Vol. 2j 0

80% of each team's hours is 84 and 80, respectively. On Team 1, one volunteer accomplished that portion. On Team 2, five volunteers made up 80% of the hours. So in this example, Team 1 has a Pareto score of 10% and Team 2 has 50%. Even though Team 1 logged more hours, Team 2 is distributing more of the weight of the work amongst themselves. This could mean that Team 2 is more resilient to volunteer burnout and has denser collaborative relationships.

This is not to denigrate the effort of "super volunteer" on Team 1 (who is also probably the Team Leader). We love super volunteers and appreciate their work! But if we need to evaluate the health of a team, we would encourage that volunteer to ask their teammates for help, or plan with PBEM how to get those volunteers more involved. A small number of volunteers should not be asked to carry the resilience effort of a whole neighborhood; that is simply too much. There are also five volunteers on Team 1 who logged zero hours. The Team Leader may want to ask PBEM if those volunteers are still active in the program.

Yearlong vs. Quarterly Pareto Numbers

This Wiki article references both annual ("Yearlong") and quarterly Pareto Numbers for Portland Districts. However, only the annual number is really important; quarterly figures are more of a curiosity and do not really say much about overall team activity.

MSC: Minimum Service Contribution

This metric indicates what percentage of active volunteers in the dataset made their Minimum Service Contribution of twelve logged hours in a year.

Notes and References

  1. ↑ Estimating team hours is tricky, because team members do not spend all their hours on community preparedness programming. The team will get deployed during incidents or work on other bureau projects. Also, some weeks, team members may volunteer time over 40 hours.
  2. ↑ All hour totals represent the number of hours logged by volunteers. Actual volunteer hours are underreported.
  3. ↑ Deployment hours represent hours spent responding to an emergency incident. Service hours represent hours that directly improve programming, such as through instruction, event planning, filming training videos, writing articles, and so on.
  4. ↑ Hours spent either in Basic NET Training, or hours refreshing basic volunteer skills (e.g. an Active NET volunteer re-taking Basic NET Training).
  5. ↑ Hours in advanced training courses or in response exercises.
  6. ↑ Any hours related to BEECN or amateur radio activities by PBEM volunteers.
  7. ↑ Community engagement hours include NET team meetings, community presentations, NET Team Leader responsibilities, tabling at events, etc.
  8. ↑ The "Pareto number" (based on the Pareto Principle) is an index of volunteer activity. It is one method for measuring how active PBEM volunteers are. The number is the percentage of active PBEM volunteers who contributed 80% of the reported volunteer hours. A higher number is a higher representation of activity (so: the higher the number, the better). A program with consistently low Pareto numbers is probably not sustainable, as that would indicate a very small number of volunteers doing almost all of the work.
  9. ↑ Minimum Service Contribution.
  10. ↑ Estimating team hours is tricky, because team members do not spend all their hours on community preparedness programming. The team will get deployed during incidents or work on other bureau projects. Also, some weeks, team members may volunteer time over 40 hours.
  11. ↑ All hour totals represent the number of hours logged by volunteers. Actual volunteer hours are underreported.
  12. ↑ Deployment hours represent hours spent responding to an emergency incident. Service hours represent hours that directly improve programming, such as through instruction, event planning, filming training videos, writing articles, and so on.
  13. ↑ Hours spent either in Basic NET Training, or hours refreshing basic volunteer skills (e.g. an Active NET volunteer re-taking Basic NET Training).
  14. ↑ Hours in advanced training courses or in response exercises.
  15. ↑ Any hours related to BEECN or amateur radio activities by PBEM volunteers.
  16. ↑ Community engagement hours include NET team meetings, community presentations, NET Team Leader responsibilities, tabling at events, etc.
  17. ↑ The "Pareto number" (based on the Pareto Principle) is an index of volunteer activity. It is one method for measuring how active PBEM volunteers are. The number is the percentage of active PBEM volunteers who contributed 80% of the reported volunteer hours. A higher number is a higher representation of activity (so: the higher the number, the better). A program with consistently low Pareto numbers is probably not sustainable, as that would indicate a very small number of volunteers doing almost all of the work.
  18. ↑ Minimum Service Contribution.
  19. ↑ From: https://www.portland.gov/civic/documents/district-1-profile-2023/download
  20. ↑ From: https://www.portland.gov/civic/documents/district-2-profile-2023/download
  21. ↑ From: https://www.portland.gov/civic/documents/district-3-profile-2023/download
  22. ↑ From: https://www.portland.gov/civic/documents/district-4-profile-2023/download
  23. ↑ Estimating team hours is tricky, because team members do not spend all their hours on community preparedness programming. The team will get deployed during incidents or work on other bureau projects. Also, some weeks, team members may volunteer time over 40 hours.
  24. ↑ All hour totals represent the number of hours logged by volunteers. Actual volunteer hours are underreported.
  25. ↑ Deployment hours represent hours spent responding to an emergency incident. Service hours represent hours that directly improve programming, such as through instruction, event planning, filming training videos, writing articles, and so on.
  26. ↑ Hours spent either in Basic NET Training, or hours refreshing basic volunteer skills (e.g. an Active NET volunteer re-taking Basic NET Training).
  27. ↑ Hours in advanced training courses or in response exercises.
  28. ↑ Any hours related to BEECN or amateur radio activities by PBEM volunteers.
  29. ↑ Community engagement hours include NET team meetings, community presentations, NET Team Leader responsibilities, tabling at events, etc.
  30. ↑ The "Pareto number" (based on the Pareto Principle) is an index of volunteer activity. It is one method for measuring how active PBEM volunteers are. The number is the percentage of active PBEM volunteers who contributed 80% of the reported volunteer hours. A higher number is a higher representation of activity (so: the higher the number, the better). A program with consistently low Pareto numbers is probably not sustainable, as that would indicate a very small number of volunteers doing almost all of the work.
  31. ↑ Minimum Service Contribution.
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