Michelle, in the US, all COADS include community groups and nonprofit organizations, and some will include county authorities, too. Our county used to have one, but it is work to keep it going and the COAD faded. Now, three years after a major wildfire, there's a group trying to get a COAD going again. There are many relationship challenges in play, one of which as ABCDers will recognize is the fact that the effort is being led by very well-meaning institutional representatives. The impulse is right but none of the reps have even been particularly trained in the principles of convening a gathering. That's important because otherwise conveners go through the motions of providing "ice breakers" and what were meant to be letters of encouragement, and end up offending many of the very people they thought they would impress.
The key thing about a COAD is to be able to keep the relationships among the groups and individuals up to date so that in the event of an actual emergency the scrambling over one another that tends to happen can be very quickly smoothed. Many here remain hopeful for this renewed effort as it's still very early days in the organizing.
There is one institutionally supported effort many of us are hoping will lead somewhere. Called a CERT (community emergency response team), I got this training in another city and thought I would get a refresher when I moved to Lake County. It turns out not to be an easy thing, as initially the sheriff's department advised me I would be better off waiting for another training in the city I started in because no one had the money or insurance to host one here. After several more disasters in the area and around the state, the State Governor's office called for greater volunteer activity and provided grants for, among other things, CERT training. The first trainings have begun. The training has been updated to now also include mental health first aid and awareness of new mass casualty events (terrorist attacks, school shootings - we don't get called in for those, but we needed to know). We were informed that it would take two years to get a full cadre and partnering system with first responders in place, and then all would depend on how strongly everyone held together and kept in practice through quiet times. These are cultural shifts I'm hoping we can keep reaching towards.