Nonprofit Crisis Communications Plan
If you didn't have a crisis communications plan in place before the COVID-19 pandemic, don't waste your energy kicking yourself for it. Being in the center of a crisis is the perfect time to create one. Your insight into crisis communications has never been better.
A crisis communications plan serves a few purposes. It provides guidelines on who and what you need to communicate during an emergency. It sets up your organization to remain credible and trustworthy by being prepared and focused on transparency, dispelling rumors, and reducing fear and panic.
Types of Crisis
When you're creating your crisis communications plan, keep in mind that there are a few types of emergencies a nonprofit organization may face. You may be tempted to write your communications crisis plan in response to a natural crisis since it’s what the globe is facing at the moment.
Hubspot has a great article on five types of business crisis:
Financial Crisis
Personnel Crisis
Organizational Crisis
Technological Crisis
Natural Crisis
Read the article before you begin writing your plan. It will give you insight into how each crisis may affect your organization, and how you can plan for each.
When your plan is complete, read through it with the lens of each type of crisis to ensure all your bases are covered.
What To Include
Your crisis communications plan does not need to be lengthy. It should be mindful of the five types of crisis, and include these five elements:
Crisis Management Team
Audiences and Stakeholders
Response Plan
Messaging Guidelines
Post-Crisis Assessment
Crisis Management Team
Key staff should be prepared, if not trained, to be part of a crisis management team. Each member has a role in either making crucial crisis communications decisions and approvals, serving as strong and sincere spokespersons, creating crisis messaging and materials, and disseminating crisis messages.
Your organization's crisis communications team may look like:
CEO (a likely candidate for spokesperson)
Executive and Senior staff
Key program staff (those with the closest contact with the community and clients)
Human Resources
Communications and PR staff
Social Media Manager
Web Developer/Manager
Graphic Designer
In this section, include each person's name, role, and as much contact information as you can. These are the staff that should have this crisis communications guide on hand.
Audiences and Stakeholders
You have numerous kinds of audiences and stakeholders, and each one will be communicated with differently during a crisis. In this section, list out all of your audiences. Your audiences may include:
Staff
Board Members
Clients
Partners
Donors
Media
Public
Be able to answer the following questions for each audience type:
Where does this audience fall into a hierarchy for sharing information? For example, your staff and board should receive a full response before the media and the public.
Which crisis team member is in charge of communicating with this audience?
What platforms will be used to communicate with this audience, ie, website, social media, email, signage, fact sheets, phone calls, voicemail recording
Response Plan
The Response Plan section should include prepared response strategies. Consider including the following:
Crisis scenarios for each audience and the five types of crisis, including how the audience may react and how your organization may respond.
Boilerplate for initial response. This should cover an acknowledgment of crisis, a brief description of the occurrence, specific actions taken in response, and contact for more information
Material development that may be needed, like fact sheets and signage
Technology you will employ for crisis communications
Ongoing communications plan during the length of the crisis, including platforms used and frequency of messages.
Monitoring plan, including social media and the press
Documentation guidelines
Messaging Guidelines
Your crisis management team should be briefed on the do's and don't of crisis communications. Essential messaging guidelines should include responding as soon as possible, and to be transparent.
In my last post, I included specific guidelines to communicate during a natural disaster crisis like COVID-19. Here are a few of those guidelines that you should also consider adding to your crisis communications plan. Remember to address all types of emergencies, not just a natural disaster.
DO'S
Be factual. Focus on accurate information that is relevant to your organization and your audience. This likely includes service hour changes, cancelations, available support, and topline precautions your organization is taking.
Lead with your organization's values. When you communicate significant changes, do so in a way that puts your community first and explains why your organization is taking action.
Be cautious and trust your gut. If you're the slightest bit unsure if a particular message is going to sit well with your audience, then slow down. The rule of thumb is this: if it makes you even the tiniest bit uneasy, don't send it out.
DONT'S
Don't go silent. Even when information is limited, be present and transparent, and above all—be genuine.
Don't use scare tactics. Provide factual information with empathy, and your audience will want to come to you again and again for the latest information they need to know.
Don't be an expert if you're not one. Share your expertise, but be sure it's appropriate to your organization and industry. In case of a natural disaster, use your voice and influence to amplify crucial messages from leaders and experts.
Post-Crisis Assessment
How'd your crisis communications do? What should you have done differently? When the crisis passes, answer a shortlist of assessment questions that will help you update your crisis plan.
Were crisis communications team members equipped and trained for their role?
Were audience responses different than expected?
What additional messaging and materials would have been helpful to have on hand?
Ready to create your crisis communications plan? Download a free template by clicking the button below.