Sharing the news of a closure

Letting the people involved with your organisation know about a closure isn’t an easy task, and could be an emotional process. We’ve put together some tips on how to manage sharing the news.

Communicating to staff and people using your services

It’s important to think about the timing of when you tell people that your organisation is closing. There are legal requirements when employees are facing redundancy – you need to know what your legal responsibilities as an employer are. News travels fast, especially in local organisations so the chances are you will need to communicate more widely to your volunteers, service users etc. fairly soon after you have given employees official notice of redundancy.

You can contact the SCVO HR Service for more help and advice.

Emotional support

This will be difficult for everyone involved with your organisation, and extremely emotional. These emotions may be displayed differently for different people so take some time to think about how you might deal with an upset employee or an angry volunteer, for example.

Do you have a counselling service for employees to access? Make sure you’ve shared the details of this and checked eligibility.

Handling offers of donations or support

You may get people or funders coming forward with offers of donations. It’s important that you take a clear stance on whether you accept or decline donations at this point. Are you able to accept donations, what will they be used for, will it make any difference to the closure of the organisation? Is it worth accepting offers to continue your work, or is it a short-term fix, which will just prolong the closure? Every organisation is different, and you must make the best decision for your organisation and its viability.

Working with the media

A charity facing closure may at some point need to or find it useful to work with local or national media. This could be to:

• Make a last attempt to save the organisation through campaigning, raising funds or other additional support
• Communicate the closure, including to users of the services.

If there is wider public interest in the closure of your organisation, you could also be approached directly by members of the media.

For smaller or local organisations, local press and radio could be a good first call. Often they are the most invested in local services, have the best understanding of what they do, and have direct links to communities.

For larger, regional or national organisations the press can be a valuable vehicle for getting the word out. The benefit of these is that they are more likely to be read by decision-makers, including politicians and public sector groups responsible for funding. However, getting coverage will probably depend on how significant the story is seen as and the bar for coverage may be higher.

The most common way of securing media coverage is through the publishing of a press release. This can take many forms, but should follow roughly the same structure. It should include:

• a headline
• some information about the predicament the charity is in
• a quote or two from those at the charity
• any case studies showing your value.

If the charity cannot be saved, it would be worth highlighting how you made the decision to close down, if any alternatives were considered, what happens next and where else people can go.

After you have written this press release, you will need to share this with journalists and media outlets. Most local news outlets - including newspapers and radio stations - will have email addresses on their websites, and this should be the first port of call. Alternatively, reaching out and messaging via social media may be a good option.

For national media outlets, they will likely have a central email address to send news to. This can be a good way of getting noticed, but if you are able to identify the contact details of any individual journalists, this would strengthen your chances of garnering coverage.

Before considering these options, it would be worth ensuring that internal communications and discussions with stakeholders have taken place to ensure that these discussions are not being had without the knowledge of those involved. While this does include a risk that the news could leak outwith your own control in a full sense, it is essential that staff, trustees and the like are fully aware of any situation before it reaches the media.

Dealing with media interest can be overwhelming. Make sure that wellbeing is put at the forefront of any work, and that the implications of putting any individuals in the public eye have been fully considered and explained by those involved.

For any organisations that are still struggling or have further questions, SCVO are here to help. Our communications and media team are very experienced in this area, and will be happy to answer your questions. Contact Niall Christie via email at niall.christie@scvo.scot.