Protecting the Reputation of your Non-profit Organization by Carolyn Flaherty

The reputation of a non-profit is perhaps their greatest asset and an equally important marketing tool. Therefore you should be proactive in protecting your organization’s good name particularly in today’s environment when a disgruntled employee, volunteer, donor or service recipient can instantly vent frustrations over the Web via any number of popular social media sites; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs to name a few.

Below are a few ideas for how to mitigate reputational risk:

1. Set up and adhere to human resource policies. Ensure that employees and volunteers are fairly treated and issues are addressed in a timely manner.

2. Create a comprehensive conflict of interest policy that is distributed and understood.

3. The AICPA recommends setting up a whistleblower hotline or similar medium for stakeholders to direct concerns and frustrations. Having an outlet for your shareholders to turn to may keep them from turning to public platforms like social media.

4. Engage in social media. Having a social media presence keeps you in the conversation. Your participation in the conversation allows the stakeholders to gain a better understanding of you and your organization. If you can get to know the stakeholders and form a relationship, you will likely become aware early on of a brewing issue that could go public and therefore able to reach out to parties before the snow ball gets rolling. Furthermore, you will have a ready audience to engage and likely a veritable army of fans that will come to your defense should a problem arise.

Finally, there are also communication consultants and reputational monitoring and protection services available. Communication consultants can assist you with your social media personality and help you put a plan in place to deal with negative media. Reputational monitoring and protection services will aide in watching online and media activity concerned with your entity and can even help you rebuild your reputation.
Your non-profit organization’s good name is definitely an example of when the best defense is a good offense!