This is not a drill.

Crisis communications
to weather the storm.

Client Type: Nonprofits, foundations, philanthropic organizations, socially responsible companies, social entrepreneurs
Industry Relevance: The social change sector including those working in education, climate justice, health equity, housing reform, income inequality, racial justice, immigration rights and other sectors

The Wakeman Agency helps mission-driven causes and socially responsible companies leverage the power of strategic communications in pursuit of social change.

The Scenario

Every day is like an avalanche. This is what we call “information overload”, and it is an intentional tactic used to desensitize, wear down our critical thinking skills, demoralize and convince us that all is lost. But all is not lost. Every day we are seeing people fight back against this onslaught in many ways, and we are helping many in the social sector to manage the overload through proactive strategy.

Much of our work right now is supporting clients—nonprofits, foundations and for-profit companies—through strategic guidance, assessment of risk, active crisis management and planning. This context requires nimble responses, pivoting according to circumstances and a strong understanding of the landscape impacting communications—including political, judicial and social phenomena.

Key Components of Crisis Management and Planning

Given that reality, we wanted to share what exactly this kind of support can look like. Recent clients have had pressing time-sensitive challenges that required them to make adjustments to their language and overall strategy in condensed timeframes, sometimes as quickly as a 30-60 day time period. With each client we take a rapid but tailored approach, fitting our interventions to their specific needs, their particular sectors of operation, and the key interested parties that will be impacted by—and who will take notice of—their communications. The range of these nuanced supportive services can include:

  1. Active Crisis Management– Minute-by-minute advisory, communications guidance for conversations with institutional and individual donors, triage tools, media training and support for staff. This includes timely strategic advisory to answer questions about how to use language and communications as situations emerge or transform.
  2. Communications Audits – Reworking existing language for web pages and key organizational materials, and the creation of messaging touch points for the revamping of organizational communications at all levels. This includes guidance to maintain funding viability while also sustaining trust of key partners amidst unfolding changes.
  3. Crisis Planning – Creating a Risk Register as a comprehensive tool to proactively outline the key areas of risk confronting a specific organization, and tailored messaging to address those vulnerabilities on the front end, before crises explode.
  4. Scenario Testing – Assessment of your team’s real-time response capabilities and review of standard operating procedures for crisis timelines and contingencies.
  5. Audience Assessment – It is key that organizations take into consideration the perception of how those they serve view any sweeping changes to how they talk about their work or which voices are represented. Our team can advise on evaluating reputational risk and engagement opportunities with audiences, given this reality.

The Risk Register is particularly useful because in a time of high uncertainty, economic turmoil and constant change, it can be very difficult to think beyond the things happening right in front of us. However, planning for risk and future-proofing requires one to think expansively and to consider alternative or multiple possible scenarios. The process of creating a risk register externalizes the need for this type of thinking and planning—relying on the expertise provided by a communications and crisis management team that has extensive experience across a wide range of risk phenomena.

If you are uncertain about how to proactively address risk before it balloons into a crisis, or if you feel you’re actively putting out fires all the time, let’s talk about what strategic advisory can mean for you and your teams.