Crisis Communications

Rapid-response playbooks, bilingual family and stakeholder communications, and the on-the-ground coordination that determines whether a crisis becomes the story or just the start of one.

What crisis communications actually is

Crisis communications, done right, is the discipline of being first, being accurate, and being human — in that order, under time pressure, while every other part of the organization is also asking for your attention.

It is mostly not about damage control. Most of the work happens before the crisis starts: the playbooks that already exist when the call comes in, the spokesperson roster that is already trained, the family communications template that is already in two languages. When the playbook works, the public-facing version of the work looks calm. When it doesn't, every other communications team in the organization can tell.

What I deliver

• Crisis communications playbooks. The documented procedures your organization runs when something goes wrong — written for the people who have to use them at 2am, not for the legal review that signs them off.
• Spokesperson preparation under pressure. Senior-leader coaching for hostile interviews, satellite media tours during active disasters, message discipline that survives a long news cycle.
• Bilingual (EN/ES) family and stakeholder communications. Especially critical for education and public-health organizations whose audiences are predominantly Spanish-speaking. Translated-after-the-fact comms during a crisis are visibly translated; built-bilingual comms are not.
• On-the-ground coordination during active crises. Working alongside legal, operations, and program teams to decide what to say, when to say it, and to whom. This is the part most consultants don't do.

Sectors I've worked in during a crisis

National disaster response at the American Red Cross. International humanitarian response at SOS Children's Villages. Education-sector communications at School in the Square through a period that included pandemic operations, family-facing decisions, and the kind of community communications no playbook fully covers in advance.

"Most of the work happens before the crisis starts. The playbooks that already exist when the call comes in. The spokesperson roster that is already trained. The family communications template that is already in two languages."

When to bring me in

Two moments. Either before you have a crisis — to build the playbook, train the spokespeople, and design the bilingual templates while there is time to do them well. Or during one, to bring an outside perspective into a room where everyone is too close to the situation to see the audience clearly.