Crisis Communications for Foundations

Foundation crises are quieter than corporate crises and slower to develop than nonprofit crises. They are also more reputation-sensitive: a foundation's name is its asset. The communications playbook has to match.

The foundation-specific crisis types

• Grantee scandal communications. When a grantee is in the news for the wrong reasons, the foundation's response is scrutinized.
• Board-controversy communications. Trustee resignations, governance disputes, and family-foundation generational conflicts.
• Investment and fiduciary communications. Mission-aligned investment debates, divestment campaigns, and fiduciary scrutiny.
• Program-decision crises. Funding cuts, strategic pivots, and shifts that grantees and field stakeholders experience as betrayals.

What I deliver

• Crisis playbooks specific to foundation crisis genres.
• Grantee communications during sensitive moments. The relationships you protect during a crisis are the ones that compound over decades.
• Board, trustee, and family-principal communications support.
• Spokesperson preparation for foundation presidents and program officers facing press inquiries.

Where the work connects to my career

National crisis communications at the American Red Cross — including disaster response coordination, executive media training, and earned-media management during high-pressure moments — transfers directly to foundation crisis work. The discipline is the same: speed, accuracy, humanity, in that order, under scrutiny.

"A foundation's name is its asset. The communications playbook has to match."