When a Crisis Starts With Something Ordinary: Why Charities Need to Stress-Test Their Crisis Comms

What I'm finding when talking to some charity leaders about crisis communications is that they tend to think about crisis comms plans as something you need when something has gone catastrophically wrong, or that you'll deal with when it happens - rather than something you need to prepare for. Some of the biggest comms problems start with something that seems completely ordinary.

That was one of the things I was talking about over coffee with Barrie Hodge from St Basils in Birmingham this week. We ended up putting each other through a whole series of "what if?" scenarios, drawing on our past experiences and the kinds of things that can catch organisations out.

In charities it's very easy to assume everyone has the best intentions because you're doing good things. But what happens if you receive a donation from someone whose political views or activities could cause controversy, or whose ethics conflict with your charity's code of conduct?

What if you're an apolitical charity, but you need politicians' support to change policy, and you're facing backlash because you're seen to be working with Labour, Greens or Reform?

What if you offer single sex services and are having to work out how to navigate what you do and how you communicate it in light of new EHRC guidance?

And what about something as simple as "Come along and help at our fundraiser"? You take some photographs and then you discover that one of the volunteers is a convicted criminal. Suddenly that innocent photograph has become a very different problem.

A journalist asks you for a case study, your team finds someone - but have they been properly prepared for what it means to have their story told publicly? Do they understand that their voice and their name could end up on the radio? And once it's out there, you can't take it back?

And this is where media training comes in too. Your spokesperson might be briefed to talk about the event, but journalists can quickly pivot. They may ask about something in the news that day, about your processes, or something else they've dug up that they know could give them a headline.

As a journalist I've made this happen before. You don't control the narrative - the journalist does.

A crisis could be as simple as a misguided social media post or someone saying one wrong word in an interview. By the time you realise it's a crisis, it can be too late to work out your response.

That's why I think crisis comms planning needs to be much more than a document sitting somewhere on your shared drive (or in some cases no document at all!). You need to stress test it, train your people and ask the awkward questions about scenarios that feel unlikely, uncomfortable or even slightly ridiculous. Because those are the ones nobody has thought about.

Did you look at any of the above scenarios and go "Oh shit, yeah, we really don't know what we'd do if that happens"?

Because if so, we definitely need to have a chat. One to one anyone?