Crisislink

Situation
Summary background of the organization
This group works directly with people facing crises such as trauma, suicide, or family issues stemming from these events. This group provides information, resources, and education as well as emergency support via a robust hotline system for emergencies, used by over 27,000 callers last year alone.

Obstacles
The communication challenges faced
The group has many communications ideas, yet they often respond to an immediate issue, rather than are planned in advance, creating excess time and money being used. In an effort to address this, the communication team had begun to plan, but their document was in need of review so that those outside the team could use it effectively.

Solution
The steps and solution taken by the CreateAThon team
The CreateAThon team reviewed the organization’s communications plan and revised the format to better categorize the many tactics, timelines, budgets, and audiences into a cohesive flow. A quick lesson about creating a comprehensive table, based on communications best practices occurred. This was met with great relief after trying other ways unsuccessfully to gather all their ideas into a logical format. In addition, the consultant covered key differences between strategies, goals, and tactics, so the CrisisLink team could accurately sort out their ideas into a plan that made more sense for their use. In conclusion, the group discussed ways the revised plan could benefit CrisisLink: to improve clarity of direction, decrease overall communication program cost, increase efficiency for staff time, document future efforts for funding purposes, and provide a tool for board members to talk about how CrisisLink messages would be spread to others. Meanwhile, the design team developed an entirely new set of communication materials!

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