Kem Meyer's Blog

What is “essential communication” during a global crisis

Recently, I was a guest panelist on The Unstuck Group webinar helping churches think through how to bring Easter to communities who can’t gather in-person and are desperate for something to look forward to.  

My part of the conversation was focused on how we communicate. What’s essential – and effective –  during a global crisis?  

“Everybody’s online! The opportunity to engage people is limitless!”

“Everybody’s online! The opportunity to repel people is limitless!”

Which, of course, is a conversation for all of us.

Clergy and congregations aren’t the only ones trying to figure out what’s helpful, how to foster community, and what connects with people in this very weird, and sensitive, cultural climate.

I’ve pulled together parts of the webinar we all can lean into as we pivot our approach for “what we offer” and “how we talk about it.” I guess you could call this the amplified show notes.

1. Is the messaging relatable?

Your #1 communication priority is to demonstrate understanding of the situation at hand. If you’re not in touch with the real needs around you, it’s hard to serve people well. 

Emotions are frayed, anxiety is heightened. The life disruption for many is all-consuming. Needs have changed. 



Take it with you. Download the Essential Communication Decision Tree.

Where do you start? Drop pretense, use plain language and demonstrate your situational awareness by being more relational and less institutional. A few super simple examples: 

Remaining Faithful and Connected Under Quarantine. It may feel like life is on pause. But you don’t have to be. We’re in this together. DOWNLOAD: Essential Communication Decision Tree DOWNLOAD: Essential Communication Decision Tree (artsy version)



2. Is the amount of posts and emails appropriate?

Streets may be empty but social channels are flooded. In place of traffic jams people are drowning in content overload. 

[Everything’s too much with the exception of the memes. Keep them coming.] 

Organizations are frantic to do something. Anything. 

And, it shows. 

Looooooong emails, bulky communication plans, and staff working around the clock to create videos and posts to keep the activity engine going. 

Trust me. That’s not helping anyone. How many COVID-19 emails are sitting in your inbox? How many do you open anymore? 

People are already stressed out. Make sure your content isn’t stressing them out more. 

What do you do next? This crisis has moved us out of the role of authority into the role of coworker. Take the pressure off yourself and others. Things just got real basic. How are you uniquely positioned to help in this temporary configuration?

Facilitate connection and fight isolationOrganize resources to meet the practical needs of your customer base

What now? You don’t have to figure everything out. Figure one thing out – your unique contribution. Pick what is most needed and where your gifting lines up for this next week. 

Communicate, or demonstrate, one big idea at a time with simple clarity. 

Keeping your sanity in quarantineSome good newsTogether when we’re apart 



3. Is the website ready for visitors?

Chances are your building is on lockdown.

Your website just became your new facility.

It’s literally your ONLY gathering space right now.

What now? Create an interim landing page. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be real. None of the usual stuff matters right now.

Some examples:

Show you’re singularly focused Don’t make people dig for help Simple community connection



4. Is there a reason to participate?

Supportive, encouraging words and messages help. But, it’s not enough.

Specificity matters if you want people to engage. 

What now?

Show people where your money is going. How are you helping provide crisis care during this time? For your people, your customers, or your public.Give people a purpose. How can they contribute to a relief fund for those impacted? Where can they volunteer time? What donations are needed?

Two examples:

Mobilizing support Mobilizing volunteers

One final note.

If you want some outside perspective about how to make ‘what you have’ and ‘how you talk about it’ more accessible, we’ve been working overtime the last two weeks providing free crisis communications calls to help walk organizations through this.

Just send us an email. No hoops. We’re set up and ready to help.

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A blockquote means someone has something important to say. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur elit.

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Nam consequat diam nec leo rutrum tempus. Nulla accumsan eros nec sem tempus scelerisque. Morbi tincidunt risus magna, posuere lobortis felis. Donec at vehicula risus. Cras vel sollicitudin ipsum. Etiam tincidunt placerat enim, a rhoncus eros sodales ut.

A blockquote means someone has something important to say. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur elit.

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I quit. What worked before, don’t work no more.

Smart people quit things. Effective people quit things. Healthy people quit things. Growing people quit things. 

I quit. It’s been awesome run, but this will be my last post on Tumblr. I’m getting ready to launch something new. You’ll hear about it in a couple of weeks. 
You should quit. If you don’t know how, the brilliant Kevin Hendricks & awesome CFFC team just released a new ebook with 166 ways to quit. Because the way you’ve always done it doesn’t always work. It’s an amazingly cheap little book with an amazing amount of value. It’s amazing. Really. 

Highway department kept putting out more signs, but it didn’t...

Highway department kept putting out more signs, but it didn’t capture motorist attention. Turns out, they didn’t need MORE signs to grab attention, they just needed a little different. [Source.]

Do you have some communication pieces that may be invisible to your audience because of familiarity? Mix it up just a little to bring new life to a tired vehicle. Rearrange the furniture. Reorganize existing content. Switch out some stale vocabulary. You don’t have to start from scratch to make the invisible noticeable again. 

Canva Design School Blog

Canva Design School Blog:

Have you used Canva yet? It’s one of the best DIY design tools I’ve seen to-date. There’s built in guardrails and coaching that points you away from bad DIY to professional quality. Great tool for churches, schools and non-profits. Color me impressed. 

"We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century - the blindness about..."

“We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century - the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?” - lies where we have never suspected it… None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”

- http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm#ch_0

"This is the copywriter’s task: not to create this mass desire – but to channel and direct it...."

“This is the copywriter’s task: not to create this mass desire – but to channel and direct it. Actually, it would be impossible for any one advertiser to spend enough money to actually create this mass desire. He can only exploit it. And he dies when he tries to run against it. Let me repeat. This mass desire must already be there. It must already exist. You cannot create it and you cannot fight it. But you can – and must – direct it, channel it. Focus it onto your particular product.”

- How Rodale Inc. Evolved Its Content Strategy to Become the World’s Largest Health and Wellness Media Company (via janefriedman)

Lessons…