Your plan for dealing with the new coronavirus, COVID-19, should include how to communicate about your response. Today I offer some basic suggestions about external communications to the beneficiaries your nonprofit serves. I am not a professional crisis communicator! All I have is ideas about how to apply general best practices in nonprofit communication to this particular situation. If you missed my post about the basics of crisis communication, you might start there.
I’ve seen some pretty inept blast emails from nonprofits about their response to COVID-19.
But I’ve also seen some good ones, all from local nonprofits. The virus hasn’t yet arrived in my part of New Jersey, so these organizations are in the initial stages of their crisis plans.
I’m impressed with how two nonprofits have used their first external email blasts to:
- reassure participants and
- reinforce hygiene messages while
- linking their crisis response to their mission.
These two organizations couched their initial crisis communication in mission-oriented terms.
- GlassRoots, a nonprofit arts education program in Newark, used the phrase “keep staff and students safe” in its first coronavirus email. At GlassRoots, middle-school kids work with fire and molten glass. Safety is kind of a big deal.
- My church, St. Paul’s Lutheran in Jersey City, headlined its hygiene-oriented message “Keeping one another healthy” – highlighting the mutual care that characterizes healthy congregations.
St. Paul’s is reinforcing the hygiene messages in person and in signs around the building; I presume GlassRoots is too. If I were GlassRoots, I’d have staff standing at the door when kids arrive. “Hi, Camila, good to see you! Please wash your hands. Remember, 20 second with warm water and soap!”
Another thing I’ve noticed is that some nonprofits are modifying their policies.
For example, Mile Square Theater (MST) in Hoboken is offering refunds to patrons who choose not to attend if they are coughing. The email in which the theater announced this policy did several things right:
- Had a reader-centered subject line: “Staying healthy at MST.” This is no time for messages like “Important news from MST”!
- Used headings. Each heading – “Here’s what you can do” and “Here’s what we’re doing” – was followed by a numbered list with a boldface intro line.
- Put the new news first. The first item under “what you can do” announced the refund policy. Subsequent items were about handwashing and cleaning, which by now are familiar messages.
When COVID-19 really gets going in our area, these small nonprofits will have to make some hard choices. I presume they have or are making plans to shut down if necessary.
If their initial emails about hygiene are any indication, they probably have pretty good plans for communicating the next steps.
For example, when they have to cancel some events or close down altogether, their blast email will (I hope) feature:
- An explicit subject line, such as “[ORG] is closed until [DATE]”
- A first paragraph that repeats this explicit information in different words
- Details in bullets people can digest easily
- More bullets about how the organization will communicate updates
- An expression of concern for the safety of participants and workers at the end (not at the beginning)
Because these organizations are smart, they will also:
- Tell any onsite participants the day before the closure, if possible, and hand them a flyer. (Organizations that work with non-native English speakers will, as they can, translate these flyers into participants’ home languages.)
- Reinforce the message with blast texts and phone calls, if they have this capability.
- Plaster the news at the top of their website home page and any pages participants might visit frequently, such as the calendar. At the top, mind you.
- Ditto for social media pages.
What am I missing? How is your organization communicating its response to COVID-19? Please share your ideas below.