There are currently two interconnected and conflicting challenges in many countries in the world: emergency and disaster preparedness and the public finance crisis. Volunteers are a valuable and necessary resource for emergency and disaster management. This paper deals with various experiences and emergencies in the Czech Republic in which the nonprofit sector is significantly involved. The aim of the paper is to identify the scope of Czech emergency volunteering and its role in the national Integrated Rescue System (IRS). The Czech IRS is a well-established system based partly on volunteers. The volunteer-to-professional ratio is nearly 12 to 1 for firefighters and about 3.6 to 1 for the mountain rescue service; the water rescue service consists exclusively of volunteers. Moreover, hundreds or thousands of people volunteer during large floods. The scope of volunteer engagement during emergency situations can also be illustrated through estimates of its economic value. The Czech Republic saves public finances for operational expenditures of parties of the IRS, because these costs could be lowered with volunteer participation. It is possible to consider past investments in emergency volunteering as investments in the high-functioning IRS. Analogically, current investments in emergency volunteering can and should be considered as investments in sustaining the current activities of the IRS. The Czech model should be explored more thoroughly; it could be interesting for other countries with problems in emergency and disaster response, especially countries that need to reduce public expenditures.

The risks of modern society and the emergency incidents of recent years (Haiti 2010, Japan 2011) remind us of the importance of crisis management and the world-wide international movements of the Red Cross and Red Crescent play an important role here. Compared with recent world disasters (e.g. Haiti, 2010 -250,000 dead, 300,000 injured and 1.5 million people made homeless) we can say that the Czech Republic faces emergency incidents with less disastrous consequences, yet they can still be disastrous. In the period from 1997 to 2010, the Czech Republic was affected by 8 floods, during which 116 persons died and the damage was almost 8.5 billion USD. The Czech Red Cross (CRC) is a part of the national emergency system, however, there is no concrete or systematically examined data for its crisis management. Therefore the aim of this paper is to design a survey for emergency preparedness within crisis management, both in the areas of planning and management of the Czech Red Cross crisis management. The results will be the presentation of data from preliminary research, the discussion of the survey design and a final summary of the survey with recommendations and limitations. The proposed survey methods include a description, comparison and the ideal model method. They are used in three stages; (1) preliminary research implemented at the regional level, (2) research on the entire territory of the Czech Republic and (3) is undoubtedly necessary to manage them. We consider that having enough information is the key factor determining the quality of the management and efficiency of provided help.