A Winning Framework for Crisis Preparedness & Engagement Planning
Industry:
Advocacy Organizations
Offering:
Crisis & Issues Management
Challenge
The International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) wanted a clear plan for how to engage with external audiences if a crisis or issue related to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) should arise. The IOCDF also needed a meaningful way to categorize, assess and prepare for potential crises.
Approach
Discover
We conducted a series of stakeholder interviews to understand perspectives on public conversation about OCD, what issues most often arise relating to OCD in the public dialogue and how/when they believe IOCDF should respond.
We conducted desk research to understand past issues and the effectiveness of past responses, including the approach, messaging and individuals involved.
Activate
Once we identified issues in the space, we equipped IOCDF with the information and tools they needed via an interactive workshop.
- We educated the team on the insights from stakeholder interviews and desk research.
- We cataloged potential issues, reviewed a framework for assessing and rating the severity of potential issues, and aligned on which priority issues would trigger a response.
- We established initial governance and roles for crisis response.
- We recommended templated messaging and rapid response tools.
- We highlighted best practices for monitoring/detecting issues as they arise
Results
The IOCDF gained a clear and aligned understanding of what defines an issue for their organization and what issues they would prioritize based on their importance to key stakeholders and impact to their organization. Rather than developing binders of materials that may become quickly outdated, the IOCDF benefited from an efficient workshop approach on crisis preparedness, gaining the confidence associated with having a clear crisis response system, tools and roles/responsibilities in place before a crisis arises.