u/Affectionate_Pie9100

I have been asked to get three quotes for a crisis communications retainer in NYC. If you have experience with this, I would love to hear from you. Bonus points if you can recommend someone!

Does this email provide the info someone needs to provide a quote or at least begin a conversation with me? Do I need to provide more information about any potential threats on the horizon? Thank you very much for your feedback; this is all new to me!

I am writing to request a quote for a crisis communications retainer on behalf of XXXX, a research institute with a staff of roughly 125, a strong scholarly reputation, and an active program of public events. We are in the process of establishing a formal crisis communications retainer.

We are seeking strictly crisis and issues management support. The scope we have in mind includes:

• On-call access to a senior counselor, with defined response time expectations

• Development of a crisis communications plan

• Counsel and drafting support during an active issue or crisis

• Media inquiry coordination and spokesperson guidance during a crisis

• Periodic check-ins or plan updates (e.g., annually)

This is not a proactive media relations or publicity retainer — we are focused exclusively on preparedness and issues response.

Our budget for this retainer is $2,500 per month. We would welcome a proposal that fits within that range, along with information on how overage hours are billed and your typical contract term. If that figure doesn't align with your fee structure, we would still appreciate knowing what a baseline retainer would cost so we can plan accordingly.

I am happy to schedule a brief call if that would help. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Hi everyone! Really happy to have found this group. I am CCO of a small graduate research institute that punches way above its weight in visibility. Increasingly I am asked to work on internal comms, which I love, and honestly I would love to do more of it, both because to me it is so meaningful and because my institution would so clearly benefit.

What I am finding is that some people see a clear need, and some people view internal comms as a means to an end, but without any strategy underpinning it or real strategic merit to the work. In other words, getting the information out there *is* the strategy, as far as they are concerned.

Do any of you face that, and if so, are there ways that you counter it? Last week I spent a lot of time working on a plan to share some difficult news, including a memo to department heads, a plan for a meeting, etc. With everyone else on the cc line, the CFO said that he would send comments, and then he sent me (but no one else) a complete rewrite filled with flowery and complicated language that sounded like it was trying to obfuscate the issue -- although I actually don't think that was his intent. When I asked him to walk me through why he did it, he basically said, I think mine sounds better.

How do you help colleagues understand that we aren't writing for ourselves, we are writing for a specific audience that may sometimes be served by flowery language, but not always, and never just because it sounds prettier?

Thanks!

Getting Quotes for a Crisis Communications Retainer

Value of Internal Comms