A senior executive goes rogue. A lawsuit threatens the organization’s reputation. Key stakeholders demand answers. Bad news is about to break.

We have heard it all, and have helped some of the nation’s leading nonprofit organizations and their leaders navigate crises, helping them minimize—and often completely avoid—the impact of negative publicity on their brands and budgets.

Crises can happen to nonprofits, foundations, and advocacy groups, which makes preparation for all possible known scenarios essential. In order to be crisis communications-ready, organization leaders must do two things: have plans in place for possible threats before issues arise and prepare messaging that is rooted in the values in which the organization was founded and will ground their strategy.

Creating a roadmap in advance is especially important in a world changing at a breakneck pace, where new threats are constantly emerging and leaders must hustle to catch up even as the crisis—and narrative—moves too fast for them to respond effectively.

This process should begin with a risk assessment that is conducted well before you’re in a crisis and will help you identify the organization’s greatest vulnerabilities. The risk assessment—a comprehensive audit of the possible—lays the groundwork for your crisis communications plan.

To start the risk assessment, review every area of work—including analyses of the board, finances, human resources, programs, personnel and any staff concerns—to identify potential threats, and if one is found, follow the below steps:

• Is a crisis imminent, and how will the negative publicity affect the brand’s reputation?
• Who internally needs to be brought into the conversation? 
• Is outside legal counsel and crisis communications support needed?
• Who are the key stakeholders who need to be informed and kept updated?
• What’s the messaging and communications plan for each stakeholder group?

This plan will not only help you identify the potential problems, but help you understand the likelihood of exposure, identify key stakeholders to engage, draft messaging, develop possible scenarios, and provide clear direction for you and your team to take to respond to the issue, whether it is a board member sharing polarizing views on social media that differ from that of the organization or senior leaders abusing their leadership roles.

Board chairs and senior leadership teams increasingly are being proactive by undertaking a risk assessment. Many are worried about the “Wild West” of artificial intelligence, and others have expressed deep anxiety about mis- and disinformation, a scourge on society that has succeeded in ruining personal and brand reputations with astounding speed. And a large subset are concerned about a decrease in donations, possible layoffs, and personnel-related issues.

While there is a seemingly infinite universe of emergencies that keep leaders up at night, it is important to recognize that not every bad situation is a true crisis. When faced with a tough situation, leaders should ask themselves: Is this criticism or a crisis? What are the short-term and long-term ramifications of this issue? And what will our key audiences and stakeholders think about this?

If you have already done a risk assessment, it will be easier to determine if you are driving over a speed bump or off of a cliff—and how to steer the organization in the right direction and around reputational damage.

Don’t be left playing catch up when a crisis happens—get ahead of it by assessing your risks and planning. You will thank yourself for averting—or, at the very least, mitigating—a disaster.

Erik Olvera is the chief of issue advocacy at Fenton Communications. Joe Wagner is the chief of political advocacy at Fenton Communications.