Version: 2.1

Date: May 7. 2013

Roles in crisis communication team

• Analyst
• Strategist
• Coordinator
• Copywriter
• Spokesperson

First steps

Step 1: Define the goals of your crisis communication

What do you want to achieve?

Examples:

• Regain and retain trust
• Show your organization is in control
• Inform about the situation and the risks

Step 2: Define the target audience

Make sure you know who should be involved and informed, internally and externally. Your communications to the external stakeholders could be different from your internal communication. Decide who has to get information that is more technical, and who should get information that is more generic.

Examples target audiences

• Staff at various locations
• Students
• Researchers/educators
• Other employees
• Other stakeholder organizations that have been affected by the crisis
• Government, Authorities
• Media and the general public
• International/Other universities

Step 3: Formulate your statement/message

Your message can contain the following elements:

• Date and time
• What is happening (factual)
• What actions are being taken
• When the next update will be
• Apologies (if necessary)
• In your last update: what will be done to make sure this does not happen again.