A nonprofit board receives a reputation update filled with media mentions, sentiment, reach, and engagement. The numbers may be accurate and still hide the risk that matters most. This episode examines why some of the most expensive reputation problems begin as governance decisions and arrive at the board only after they have been translated into communications metrics. The argument is narrow. Boards should not manage messaging, and most of what a capable communications team handles should never reach them. The real questions are different: which public commitments would fail a credible test, whether the people accountable for closing the gap control the resources to do it, and what the organization would have to stop claiming to close that gap. By the time the problem looks like messaging, the decision that created it is often years old.
Read the companion essay, "Reputation Is a Governance Question." https://www.onrepute.com/p/reputation-is-a-governance-question
More from On Repute at https://www.onrepute.com.
On Repute is written and presented by Shrita Hernandez. The thinking, the writing, and the experience behind every episode are mine. Season One's visual edition is presented by a digital avatar built from my photograph and speaking in my recorded voice. Illustrative scenes are generated.
