Failure in Public Relations: Non-profit Organizations Facing Growing Challenges

Failure is a growing problem for large non-profit organizations (NPOs). If they find themselves in trouble—regardless of whether it is an executive accused of corruption or controversy over this year’s salary increases—a media scandal inevitably looms. Why? The media’s best-selling product is the scandal. And NPOs are predestined to deliver that product. While the term “non-profit” implies just that, and while it may truly be the case, a suspicion often lingers that something is not quite right. Charitable organizations are built on trust, yet a favourite media narrative in Germany and elsewhere is to ask: Do they practice what they preach? Of course not. Every organization is destined to experience failure of one sort or another. This makes non-profits the perfect target for muckraking, given their role as the “good guys” and the knowledge that no one is unfailingly good. Although this has always been true, the media environment has changed completely in recent years. The digital revolution has caused an explosion in the demand for morality tales. Every local newspaper, every investigative blogger is looking for one. NPOs have to deal with that demand. Yet there is a long tradition, especially in Germany, of allowing them to work quietly behind the scenes. As a result, non-profits have developed a quasi-governmental bureaucracy and a strong dislike and distrust of the media. Dealing with today’s media means learning how to communicate failure, and media crises are an extreme example of failure in organizations. In the context of this book, they offer an additional, potentially enlightening perspective on the topic. By providing examples of German organizations, this chapter describes an abbreviated skill set non-profits can use for their public relations in times of trouble. The approach in brief: bring back ambivalence, where mono-causality or oversimplification and self-righteousness now rule.