For most organizations, the biggest communications mistake is not what they say in a crisis; it is what they failed to say in the calm that came before it.
Trust is not something you can manufacture on demand when the headlines turn ugly. It is something you either built patiently over time, or you did not. The difference between those two realities is now playing out in real-time across Minnesota.
The sprawling fraud scandal in Minneapolis that exposed billions in stolen public funds tied to childcare centers and autism therapy providers has poisoned the well for everyone involved. Some of these organizations were clearly bad actors. Others provided real services to real families and were changing lives for the better daily. Yet today, they are all lumped together in the public mind. Parents are suspicious, taxpayers are wary, and the regulators and investigators are on edge. The legitimate groups are forced into a defensive position through no fault of their own. And when you are defensive, people assume you have something to hide.
This is where positive proactive public relations becomes survival. Had those legitimate organizations spent years communicating clearly about who they served, what outcomes they produced, and how they safeguarded public dollars, they would have entered this storm with allies. They would have had parents ready to vouch for them. They would have had reporters who understood their work and could differentiate between scams and services. Instead, too many now sound the same as the fraudsters when they suddenly rush to explain themselves.
The political fallout tells the same story. Gov. Tim Walz announced that he will not seek reelection after the scope of the fraud came to light. Fairly or not, the perception is that the state lost control of taxpayer money earmarked for the most vulnerable, likely on purpose. Imagine an alternate reality in which Walz consistently communicated about audits, reforms and enforcement actions as they were happening. He might still be in the race today, and he might even be hailed as the governor who caught a historic fraud before it metastasized. Silence created a vacuum, and the scandal filled it.
We saw a similar dynamic play out last year with the U.S. Agency for International Development. When cuts were announced, the public conversation focused on waste, fraud and abuse. There was very little oxygen for the programs that were working. It was hard for supporters to defend USAID grantees because most Americans had never heard the success stories. Lives saved do not matter if nobody knows they were saved. Impact does not protect you if it is invisible.
Building trust is not a crisis activity; rather, it is a peacetime discipline. It is the steady work of showing up in your community, in the media, and in public conversation long before you need anything from anyone. Even if a crisis never comes, this kind of outreach sets you apart from competitors and builds the reputation that fuels growth and generates goodwill.
Attention is the scarcest commodity in America. Even reporters who are paid to ask questions and listen to the answers are stretched thinner every year. If you do not capture their interest early, you are unlikely to like the story that follows.
We live in a deeply skeptical age. Leaders may be completely convinced of the importance of their mission, but they should never assume the public shares that conviction. Credibility is the most valuable and most fragile asset. It is built through facts, transparency and consistency. It is destroyed in a single careless moment. If people doubt you, they will doubt everything you say.
The organizations now scrambling in Minnesota and the advocates who struggled to defend USAID are not victims of bad luck. They were victims of neglecting their own narrative. They allowed others to define them. They used their peacetime poorly.
Too many leaders still treat communications as a line item rather than a leadership function. Good work whispers unless someone gives it a microphone. The organizations that weather scandals best are not the ones with the biggest legal and public relations teams. They are the ones whose stories were already living in the community, whose clients were already advocates, and whose mission was already familiar to the people who matter most when trouble arrives.
Positive proactive public relations hardly make you bulletproof, but it can make organizations an unattractive target. It can surround you with supporters who know your work and will stand up for it when it matters most. In a world where scandal travels at the speed of social media posts, the smartest move you can make today is to start telling your story before someone else tells it for you.