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RPCfirst is a coalition of regional partnerships that have formed within the financial sector to focus on homeland security and emergency management issues. These public/private partnerships have formed organically in various cities or states, and more information about them can be found under Partnerships.

An ongoing relationship with the government is essential to a robust and evolving business continuity plan. Each level of government plays an important role in handling a disaster, and private sector firms must understand those roles, as well as what they should and should not expect from government in a crisis.

This information can be more easily obtained when firms join together and form a partnership with the public sector. Through this partnership, firms may be able to obtain daily incident information, access to an operations center during an emergency, and cooperation in learning more about evacuations, credentialing, pandemic planning, and other critical issues.

Partnerships present themselves as the ideal solution, because government cannot successfully and consistently coordinate with each individual firm. And a partnership provides government with a single point of contact for the sector in that region.

Partnerships within the financial sector began to form with ChicagoFIRST in 2003. By the end of 2005, a half dozen such organizations had formed, and the need for them to coordinate became apparent. During 2006, quarterly conference calls were held for those partnerships that had formed or were in the process of forming. The benefits of coordinating and collaborating led to the first annual in-person meeting of RPCfirst members in 2007.

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