In a crisis, perception outpaces facts. Without protocols, organizations tend to overreact or underreact, resulting in costs to their reputation, retention, and revenue. I make the case for proper planning in my recent blog “Back to School, Back to Reality: Why Preparedness Must Include Communications.”
In response to the blog, a U.S. independent school asked how to quantify the ROI of a crisis communications plan. While asked by the education sector, the question and answer hold across industries. In short, true ROI is challenging to measure and should be viewed more like an investment in insurance. Organizations invest in a crisis communications plan to mitigate the harm and costs associated with events that they hope never happen.
A crisis communications plan is a playbook for handling emergency incidents and crises, and includes, among other elements:
- A scenario list organized by severity with matching actions and clear definitions of thresholds and triggers.
- An outline detailing who decides what, by when, and the roles across leadership, operations, and communications.
- A single source of truth as the situation unfolds, with documentation for legal and other reporting purposes.
- A plan for first-day messages across websites, emails, staff notices, social posts, and media holding statements, incorporating updates for each stakeholder group.
How a proactive crisis plan protects value
1) Faster decisions, as well as clearer and more transparent updates, can help avoid misinformation, contain emerging situations and reduce legal fees. In education claims, legal defence is a large share of total costs. According to the insurance company, United Educators, about 50% of claim costs were attributed to defence. Additionally, the company’s Large Loss Report 2025 shows a dramatic increase in large losses in K-12 schools over the past six years.
Takeaway: Avoiding or mitigating even one legal matter can have a multi-year budget impact, potentially affecting the allocation of resources for several years.
2) Timely, transparent family updates during a crisis can reduce withdrawals and re-enrollment hesitancy by boosting parent confidence. The National Association of Independent Schools reports a median grade 9 tuition of $37,135 USD and a median student attrition rate of about 8.1%.
Takeaway: With each student representing several years of tuition, even small retention losses are material.
3) Independent schools rely on concentrated philanthropy. In 2024, Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) member schools received a total of $2.82 billion, with less than 2.3% of donors accounting for 76.7% of the total funds received. In fact, in 2024, gifts exceeding $1 million accounted for 36.3% of the total funds received, while gifts of less than $1,000 accounted for 3.6% of the total funds received.
Takeaway: A very small share of donors drives most dollars, so the financial risk in a crisis is not “how many” donors, but “which” donors pause or redirect funds.
Returning to the above insurance analogy, redefine ROI – not as additional revenue and earnings generated, but as costs mitigated. Here is the formula:
(Outside counsel hours avoided + multi-year tuition from one retained student + gifts or revenue kept on schedule − plan cost) ÷ plan cost = ROI.
Learn more about Crisis Communications Services. Questions welcome!