Crisis Fundraising Lessons from the Frontlines

Arielle Randle knows a thing or two about communicating in and through a crisis .?

Like so many nonprofit leaders, she cut her teeth on crisis response communications and fundraising during the COVID-19 pandemic.?

But her experience and expertise on this topic doesn’t stop there.?

As the global head of communications and marketing for Jews for Jesus , Arielle and her team also led the ministry’s response to the war in Ukraine, and more recently, to the October 7th attack on Israel by the Hamas terror group.?

In our podcast conversation , we covered a series of topics that any fundraiser can benefit from, like:?

1. Developing a learning culture so that ever response to a crisis teaches you something and your organization becomes better prepared to address the next crisis because of the last crisis.?
2. How to balance caring for your people, who may be living in crisis, with telling the story of that crisis so that you can inspire supporters to step up and fund critical mission initiatives in the midst of a crisis.?
3. The importance of developing a crisis response strategy and plan.?
4. The value of moving quickly, and balancing getting information to your supporters before you have all the details.?
5. How to tell an evolving story over time to help keep your audience engaged once the urgency of a crisis situation has waned.?
6. How to communicate with senior organizational leadership so that they’re informed of your progress and activities, but your response doesn’t get held up in internal red tape.?
7. What it takes to keep your team focused and inspired through a crisis response, and why inspired leadership is key.?

As our world and our work become increasingly more complicated, the need to understand crisis communications and fundraising is ever-growing across our sector.?

Crisis Fundraising Guide

When a disaster or crisis strikes, quickly securing the public’s attention and support is critical. In many ways, there is a first mover advantage to fundraising during times of crisis.

However, attaining first mover status requires intentional pre-planning to ensure you can successfully execute in the immediate aftermath of a crisis.

Ultimately, disaster response strategies will:

? Strengthen the organizational brand;

? Allow you to deliver on your mission, especially to those most in need during a critical period;

? Create advantage over your competition;

? Capture unexpected market share;

? Provide unique opportunities for donor impact; and

? Create a platform for ongoing engagement with key supporters

There are six primary steps to develop a disaster response plan:

? Assess internal capacities and expectations;

? Design a strategy and corresponding executional plan;

? Prepare public-facing messages and designate those who will speak for the organization;

? Train key players, communicators, and those who may interact with the public and media;

? Identify and inform key partners (i.e., media outlets, digital and print vendors, call centers); and

? Evaluate performance and optimize.?

Potential media vehicles

? SMS / MMS

? E-Mail Acquisition / Cultivation

? Website (dedicated landing/donation page; homepage takeover; pop-ups, etc.)

? Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

? Display Campaigns

? Social media

? Telemarketing

? Radio

? Direct Mail

? Newspaper/Magazine Space Ads

? Insert Media

? Television (CTV & Broadcast)

? Peer-to-Peer

Sample Plan Outline

Preparation

? Identify key players / assign point person(s)

? Establish disaster response team and corresponding roles and responsibilities

? Provide contact information – 7 days a week, 24 hours a day

? Establish process milestones

? Set expectations for turnaround times of all major activities

? Determine budget levels and spending authorities based on the magnitude of the crisis

? Track the process during an emergency for future evaluation and improvement

Implementation

? Negotiate TV Spots / TV clips / video footage

? Submit ads to predetermined national and local publications

? Set up broadcast interviews with key staff and appropriate experts

? Deploy Email, Social, Display, CTV and Search tactics

? Activate phone center partners and launch telemarketing campaigns

? Mail all direct response materials

? Create specific “on hold” telephone message regarding the emergency response

? Provide script outlines for customer service and donor rep phone calls

? Solicit partnerships from broadcast outlets, local banks and businesses

? Determine what / if GIK will be accepted

? Prepare other collateral for awareness and involvement

? Supply partners video and/or speakers

? Seek government funding and matching opportunities when appropriate

Follow-up

? Send sincere and timely thank you letters that are custom to your disaster response efforts

? Provide timely and relevant disaster updates

? Secure email addresses for the purpose of sending cost-efficient disaster updates

? Understand that the crisis follow-up extends well beyond the time when the crisis ends

Conclusion

This Crisis Response Fundraising Plan gives you a broad overview of the process necessary to be prepared to effectively respond to any crisis. A comprehensive and tailored review and strategic plan would drill deep into key messages and tactics, determining delivery vehicles across all media types and associated budgets. Preparing at this level provides a solid foundation for an organizational emergency response that is timely, relevant, and effective.

Reach out to me if you're interested in a step-by-step, 12-month crisis response plan for your organization.

Leading Through Crisis

If you lead a team or an organization, you need to be prepared to lead through crisis.

Gone are the days of playing the odds or rolling the dice and just hoping a crisis won’t impact your business.

We now talk about crises as “when” and not “if” scenarios.

In my day-to-day work we help activate global generosity in times of crisis and human suffering to allow ministries and other organizations to provide the most effective on-the-ground response to natural and man-made disasters.

My team and I have a good bit of experience responding to crisis situations.

From Hurricane Katrina to the Haiti earthquake. From the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel conflicts in Myanmar, Syria, South Sudan. Whether it’s a tsunami, a terrorist attack, or full-scale war, our team has responded to help ease human suffering in the moment.

And along the way I’ve learned some things about leading effectively through crisis.

You might be thinking to yourself, I’m an accountant. I’m never going to be involved in something like this.

And that’s likely true.

But chances are really good that you’ll face a crisis of some type in the future.

The most common crises that I anticipate most leaders will face includes:

• A company bankruptcy
• The untimely and unplanned death of a founder or CEO, without the benefit of an established succession plan
• A major IT failure (hello Microsoft!) or a malicious attack on your systems
• The public moral failing of one of your senior executives
• Discovery of illegal or unethical business practices in your organization (Enron, Wells Fargo, etc.)
• The closure of a major business unit and/or mass layoffs
• An active shooter / workplace violence
• Civil unrest in and around the community that you serve and where your employees work and live

As a leader, you need to be prepared to deal with these situations, maintain business continuity, and keep your people focused and engaged throughout the situation.

It’s natural to want to recoil and hide under a rock when things like this happen. Human nature is to step back, avoid risk and harm, and want to protect ourselves from the impact of situations like this.

But you signed up to lead.

The rules are different for you.

In my 20+ years of leading crisis response efforts around the world for dozens of organizations, here are the key leadership lessons I’ve learned.

1. If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. One reason most crisis response organizations can do what they do at the speed and scale at which they do it is because they plan ahead. In fact, we have detailed, scripted crisis response plans that tell everyone exactly what to do, when to do it, who should be involved, and at what level to respond in the face of a variety of crisis situations. If you plan ahead you’ll be much better prepared to respond in the moment. If you don’t plan ahead, you leave everything about your response to chance. And that simply increases the risk of failure.
2. Find the opportunity in the crisis. It’s easy as the leader to scan the environment during a crisis and only see the negatives of the situation. People are suffering. Your business is being negatively impacted. Customers are afraid or upset. Your people are worn out. All of that is true. But…it’s also likely that if you look closely at the situation, you can identify new and unique opportunities to serve your people and your customers, and even potentially to identify new products and services that might be necessary because of or in the aftermath of a crisis. You may also find ways to better engage your team and get your daily work done that were not evident to you in a status quo work environment.
3. Take ownership. This doesn’t mean that you as the leader should do everything. Far from it. In fact, to get everything done you need in a crisis situation, you’re going to have to delegate and activate others all along the way. But your people will look to you to see if you are owning the situation. If you don’t take ownership they won’t trust you, and as a result, they’re less likely to show up the way you need them during the chaos of a crisis. Take ownership for the crisis response. Take ownership for leading the team through it. And take ownership for caring for your people and your customers throughout the difficult time.
4. Rally people towards a clear vision for the future. During a crisis, people will look to you to set the vision and direction for the organization. If you don’t do that, the people will scatter and scramble. There will be a lot of frenetic activity, but you’re less likely to make progress as a collective team and organization. Because without vision and direction, people will do what they each individually think is important, but it may not be (and often isn’t). That’s why you need to set the vision for the team and clearly articulate the desired future reality. Once you do that, you need to help chart the course for people, so they know what needs to be done in order to arrive at that desired new reality.
5. Communicate early and often. It’s often said that in the absence of clear communication people will tell themselves a story. And what I’ve found is that the story people tell themselves is always worse than the reality. For that reason, it’s critical that you communicate clearly and frequently during a crisis. It’s natural for leaders to want to hold off and not communicate until there is certainty. You may be inclined to sit behind closed doors with your advisors, create a gameplan, map out talking points, etc. Nothing is wrong with doing those things. But if you want to lead successfully through a crisis, you need to make some modifications. First, in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, you need to bring your people together (physically, virtually, or some combo thereof) to let them know what’s going on, share as much information as you can (it’s ok to tell them you don’t have all the answers), and to let them know that you will continue to inform them as more information becomes available. You should also plan for and commit to regular communications updates. Those can be short email updates, a specific slack channel, conference calls or stand-up meetings. The more frequently you can share meaningful updates, the better.
6. Stay calm. An important lesson here is that you as the leader set the emotional tone for the organization and for people’s response to every situation. If you are calm, collected, and focused, your people will follow. However, if you’re emotional, anxious, and frenetic in your behaviors in response to a crisis, your people will also mimic that behavior. Your leadership isn’t just your words, but also your actions. And people will model what they see from you much more than they will respond to what you say. This is why it’s critical that you remain calm.
7. Take action. One of the natural responses to a crisis situation is to freeze. People often report feeling “paralyzed” by the enormity of an emergency situation. This is why you, as the leader, must have a bent towards action. You can take a moment to assess the situation and gather input from key team members, but the longer you delay acting, the more risk that inaction becomes the norm. Reasoned, intentional action towards a solution is critical. And the more that you’re able to model this behavior for your team, the better.
8. Create pressure releases. Responding to and living through crises is stressful. You often ask your people to work longer hours under high stress, to forego things like lunch breaks and family dinners, to work weekends, etc. On top of that, emotions almost always run hot during a crisis. This is why you need to create intentional opportunities for people to let off steam and release some of the pressure they’re under. This could include a mandated shut-down time for everyone each night, shutting the entire organization down for a day or two in the middle of the week, sending someone home when you see that they’re struggling, or even gathering the team to discuss how they’re feeling on a regular basis.
9. Give them hope. When you’re facing what feels like an insurmountable challenge it’s hard to be hopeful. Your people will feel this in a crisis. They might believe that nothing will make it better, and that there’s no use in showing up well every day. They might be afraid for their jobs, for their families, and for those you serve. This can be paralyzing and destructive to morale. That’s why you need to regularly remind the team of that future vision you have, and provide hope for them in the moment. You need to regularly remind them that things will get better. Highlight and celebrate the progress that the team is making every day. Give them reasons to cheer one another on. And show them that something better is coming.
10. Learn and grow. It’s easy to work through a crisis and want to move on immediately and forget it ever happened. But that’s a mistake. One of the most valuable things you can do for your people and your organization is to conduct a post-crisis analysis. Look at everything that was done. Document key insights and learnings. What this will do is it will help your team build the muscle memory to navigate future crises well. It will also help you identify gaps in communication, process, products, decision authority, and many other areas. The more you learn and document, the better you’ll show up in the next crisis.

I encourage you to think about crisis response planning like I think about life insurance. I don’t want to need it. But I want to know it’s there when I do eventually need it.