Establishing a Response Team

Whether or not your nonprofit is directly impacted by an emergency, it may be called upon to be part of the response or just give updates to a concerned community. A Response Team centralizes any needed response and the communication that ensues. Identifying who would serve as part of the Response Team before an event saves valuable time in the first moments following a disaster. Not only are roles of response important, but involving employees in the pre-planning stage helps to engage employees and create a more holistic plan. When employees are engaged and feel they fill an important role they take the task more seriously and make the process of responding to an emergency smoother. Utilize the strengths of your team in creating your disaster response plan, and certainly review it employees and key volunteers such as board members once it has been created.

Employees are one of the driving forces in business continuity when disasters occur. Knowing their strengths, weaknesses, and abilities helps create roles for employees to fulfill in an emergency situation. Your Response Team may include key senior leadership, but it may also need to include board members, parent or client groups, and junior staff who have specific skills or areas of expertise. As you think about the roles that are needed below, consider not only the position that they are in now, but the strengths they bring to the table and what else may need to be done. For example, a CEO may find that in an emergency they need to be devoted to public inquiry and donor relations, leaving the staff functions and operations that they might normally oversee to another employee during the emergency.

If it’s possible, list only one name for each function. Other members of the agency will likely help each area, but only one person can lead and be accountable to the agency for this area. Because emergencies require more energy and effort than regular operations, consider only having one person in charge of one area, and if that’s not possible, aim to organize so that a person is not in charge of more than two areas. Utilize board members and key volunteers if the staff is not large enough to cover each area.

One of the Response Team’s main functions is to keep everyone informed: staff, board, clients, and community partners. Have daily or frequent with the Response Team, and after the meeting, the team should be prepared to inform all involved what is happening and what the day’s plans are. Response Teams must keep everyone organized and informed (Farris, Infant Crisis Services, 2018).