Public Relations Plan: Addressing Crisis at Wounded Warrior Project

This report presents a public relations plan designed to address the 2016 crisis faced by the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP), a non-profit organization. The crisis stemmed from allegations of financial mismanagement and misuse of donations, leading to negative media coverage and public distrust. The plan's goals include regaining employee trust, changing public perception, and improving media relations. The action plan outlines strategies such as defining a campaign strategy, forming a campaign team, investigating the problem, meeting with employees, making necessary financial changes, and using media to reassure the public. The evaluation plan emphasizes flexibility, audience targeting, message testing, media suitability, stakeholder communication, and crisis team training. The report aims to provide a comprehensive approach to crisis management, offering insights into how WWP could have mitigated the negative impact and restored its public image.

Running Head: PUBLIC RELATIONS PLAN 1
Public Relations Plan
Student Name:
Institution Name:
Course Name
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PUBLIC RELATIONS PLAN 2
Public Relations Plan
Name, Mission and Purpose of the organisation
The Wounded Warrior Project (WWP), a not for profit organisation in the United States, was
formed to assist the men and women of the United States who during the war on terrorism have
been severely injured. The organisation, through empowerment projects to the wounded
warriors, works to ensure that the most successful and well-adjusted generation of wounded
warriors is created in the United States’ national history. The organisation’s mission is to ensure
wounded warriors are honoured and empowered (Grant, 2015).
Facts of the Event and Negative publicity
Wounded warrior project suffered public relations crisis in 2016. New York Times and CBS
reports purported that the charity organization was involved in misspending the donations it
received unnecessarily. They cited, for instance that the organization spent a lot of the money
from donations on lavish conferences and employees’ business trips that were not necessary.
These claims were based on the allegations that the employees made the claims that the
organization spent millions annually on such expenses as travels, hotels, dinners and
conferences, thus cutting on the funds that were available to the wounded warriors/ veterans.
Further there was a statement from a report by Charity Navigator, a group charged with the duty
to monitor and rate non-profit organizations, about WWP spending about one hundred and
twenty-four million dollars on overhead costs in 2014. This is approximately forty percent of the
donations it receives (www.prnews.com/wounded-warriors-project).
Further, the charity’s tax forms also showed that the organization spending on meetings and
conferences also increased by about twenty-four million dollars within four years and the

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employees also gave shocking examples of increased extravagance within the charity
organization. The organization was also alleged to have misrepresented its financial information,
by claiming that the project spends 80.6% of the donations it gets on the veterans. These
revelations caused a public relations crisis to the organisation, regardless of the many ways in
which the financial statements can be interpreted. The organisation’s revelations could lead to
the various businesses partnering with this organisation to take caution. Additionally, this was
likely to create public relations crisis considering all this information could be accessible to the
larger public from the media.
Goals of the Public Relations Campaign and their Justifications
It thus became necessary to develop a public relations plan to persuade the public that the facts
of the matter were not as bad as shown by the reports. The goals of this campaign would be one
to regain employees’ loyalty and trust for the organisation. This is because, from the media
revelations, it was evident that the employees had been part of the revelations showing that they
lacked trust in the organisations. The employees themselves would help in creating a better
image of the company. Using informational objectives that include message exposure and
comprehension and retention by the public it would be possible to change the public view of the
organisation (Hendrix, & Hayes, 2010).
The second goal would be to change the attitude of the public towards the organisation. Public
relations crisis spoils the image of the company in the view of the public. The public’s
perception of an organisation is one of the key factors that determine the company’s success.
This goal would help change what the public think about the organisation after the media
revelations that spoilt the organisation’s public image (Diggs- brown, B. (2012).

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Finally, another goal would be to change the media attitude towards the organisation (Collister &
Roberts-Bowman 2018). This would be possible through presenting genuine financial statements
and making the necessary corrections on the financial statements that may contain errors.
Further, employing the services of an auditor and also making appropriate changes in the finance
department of the organisation., The media gets the first information about any crisis and can
also assist in correcting the public image of an organisation.
Action Plan to Achieve the Goals
To attain the goals, some steps would be taken. The first step would be, defining the campaign
strategy. Here, a clear framework of the reason, layout and duration of the campaign would be
identified and written down. Secondly, the campaign team would be selected that would help in
promoting the campaign strategy. Thirdly, it would be necessary to investigate the problem (In
Gregory, 2013). This would help unveil the reasons and loopholes that may have led to the bad
public image. Moreover, the analysis of the company’s financial statement would be done to
uncover the reality of the revelations that led to poor public relations. The next step would be to
call an employee meeting and discuss with them over the issue. From here, it would be possible
to get their ideas and also to answer their concerns regarding the company’s spending. By this,
the employees would feel involved and retain their loyalty to the company. Also, solutions to
their complaints about the organisation spending would be found.
After meeting with the employees, the next step would be to make the appropriate changes as
pertains to the revelations. For instance, changing the financial officer, auditing of the company’s
statements, firing the employees that may have caused the scandal, that is, those involved in
misspending of donations, and availing the correct company statements to the media and other

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interested parties like the donors for scrutiny and analysis. The final step would entail using the
media to assure the public that the organisation’s conditions had been rectified and that the
situation is not as worse as they may appear.
Evaluation Plan and Assessment Criteria
Developing a public relations evaluation plan would enable the organisation to determine
whether the organisation’s plan is working toward meeting the set goals. To develop a successful
evaluation plan, first, the plan should be flexible. This allows it to adapt to changes in crisis,
technology or even personnel availability. Secondly, the plan should be able to determine the
specific audience to which the message is intended, not just the general public.
Thirdly, the plan should allow for testing of the potential messages to the actual audience to
know the effectiveness of the message before it is finally released. Fourth, the plan should
explore whether the intended messages are suitable for use in the type of media that the
organisation would like to use to communicate the crisis message.
The plan should development process should also determine if the organisation stakeholders are
informed about vital issues in the organisation as this may arise during the crisis communication.
Next, the plan should explore main contributors in the crisis team, them having adequate training
and if the available resources are adequate to handle the intended project. Finally, the plan
should use such platforms as interviews, surveys and peer groups to enhance the success of the
crisis communication process (Du, 2010).
REFERENCES

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Collister, S., & Roberts-Bowman, S. (2018). Visual public relations. Strategic communication
beyond the text. Routledge publishers.
Diggs- brown, B. (2012). Strategic public relations: An audience-focused approach. Boston,
Mass: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Du, P.D.F. (2010). Introduction to public relations and advertising. Lansdowne: Juta
Grant, R.M. (2015). Foundations of Strategy. John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Hendrix, J. A., &n Hayes, D.C. (2010). Public relations cases. Boston, MA: Wadsworth
CENGAGE Learning.
In Gregory, A. (2013). Public Relations in practice. London. Kogan Page. Retrieved 7th May
2018 from www.prnews.com/wounded-warriors-project