Develop a communications plan for your organization. That is, develop a strategy on how both positive and negative news about your organization will be communicated to internal stakeholders (i.e. employees of the organization) and external stakeholders (i.e. the public, individuals affected by your organization). To help develop your plan, you may want to contemplate such topics as:

Are there different types of information that should be kept more private? (i.e. personnel, budgetary, planning, and performance information). Remember, keeping more information confidential in the public sector can compromise accountability and transparency.

a. Who in the organization should be involved in vetting information to make it public or private?

b. How can your organization use information to market the organization to public?

c. Does your organization differentiate between communicating negative information (i.e. budget cuts, personnel reductions, scandals, etc.) and positive information (i.e. awards, increases in service delivery areas, improvements in performance).