[By Richard Male, Regis Nonprofit Affiliate Faculty member] RMA (Rich Male and Associates) got acquainted last year with Jeremy Story, a volunteer for our client AfricAid who has a background in corporate communications and publishes the DenverPR Blog.com. Jeremy recently offered a list of near and far “PR disasters of 2011.”
From Netflix’s huge price increase that cost them thousands of accounts to News International’s denial of fault in the phone hacking scandal in Britain, it was an insane year for examples of how organizations of all kinds handled negative publicity.
This got us thinking about the lessons that the rest of us, including small and emerging nonprofits, can glean from these misadventures.
1 – Be realistic. Just because you are a nonprofit doesn’t mean that you are immune from accusations, whether justified or not. We’re talking here about both unprovoked and unwarranted attacks to your reputation as well as ones where you do have culpability.
2 – Be ready. For good news but especially for bad, have your spokesperson(s) identified and ready. Nonprofit leaders tend to dismiss the need for media training, assuming that expertise on a subject and/or passion for a cause are all one needs to survive in the limelight. Sadly, the future of your nonprofit could be on the line. Your greatest asset is arguably your reputation.
3 – Get an outsider’s perspective on your organization’s weaknesses (both real and perceived) before you have to defend yourself in the media. The musicians of the struggling Colorado Symphony didn’t want to make concessions recently to help keep their doors open, but it was hard for some to be sympathetic when details about their generous salaries and working hours came to light.
4 – Move quickly. If the negative publicity is occurring in social media, do not underestimate the speed at which information moves and proliferates. There’s also wisdom in fighting fire with fire, i.e., using the same social media channels to tell your side of the story. Red Cross did a fine job with this when an inappropriate tweeted message went to thousands of their supporters instead of a staff member’s personal friends.
5 – Control the timing of your messaging as much as possible. This may mean initiating a conversation with a reporter instead of dreading when the phone is going to ring. It may mean starting the dialogue online yourself on a sensitive subject instead of waiting until you’re forced to play defense.
6 – Tell the truth quickly and without obfuscation. We all cringe at “corporate-speak” for a reason: because it is not helpful and potentially enflames the people you’ve offended.
7 – Admit the blame that is yours and express genuine concern for any harm done. As soon as appropriate, move the dialogue to remediation and preventing the problem from happening again.
8 - Never be more than a sentence away from your core mission and what you value. How Penn State University could appear to be defending its legendary, lucrative football program over the safety of children was a classically mishandled PR nightmare that will be remembered for years.
9 - Take care to speak with a unified voice with a succinct and committed message. The retail chain Lowes advertised on the TV series “All-American Muslim,” then abruptly withdrew its sponsorship after some vocal criticism, but without explanation. What a confusing mess.
10 - Consider the least powerful people who are affected by your organization, and how your decisions are perceived. Take a lesson from the recent corporate snafus of Bank of America and Verizon, both of whom announced sudden fee increases in late 2011 and then immediately had to backtrack amid consumer outcry. (Verizon, can you hear us now?)
Meanwhile, in the course of researching the subject of crisis communications relating specifically to nonprofits, we found some excellent ideas in another recent blog post, this time from the Philanthropy News Digest in their Sustainable Nonprofit series entitled, “When all eyes are on you” by Jane Jordan-Meier. Her perspectives fit more with larger nonprofits than we tend to work with, although take another moment and look at her suggestions here.
Richard Male is an Affiliate Faculty member of the Global Leadership in Nonprofit program at Regis University with over 30 years of experience in the nonprofit sector as a leader and teacher. He founded Richard Male Associates in 2001 to work with nonprofits throughout the United States and internationally, helping small to mid-sized organizations with organizational development, leadership and management issues, fundraising and financial management and public policy opportunities.
