PR and Crisis Management Recommendations & Coaching

NaNoWriMo is looking for PR and Crisis Management consultation in the wake of unwanted, large-scale media attention regarding a statement we made about our position on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The recent backlash, which involved our position (one of neutrality) related to both the neutrality position itself (which many writers disagree with) and also some missteps we made in the delivery of our statement itself. We are also vexed by having been covered so widely (New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, etc.) and having been so sorely misquoted. This has been very taxing on our small staff and board. We are a very small organization that has a paradoxically large following and a historically strong brand. We are just not equipped to respond at the level at which we are being talked about.

This has also been a devastating blow, as it comes in the wake of an earlier scandal from November 2023, which involved accusations of child endangerment. This AI dust-up came at a time when we were already on shaky ground. We need people with more experience to come in with perspective on how to move forward and what messaging we need to put forth to unite our community and to move forward. One final weakness: I, the Interim Executive Director, am a very strong writer, but I use a tone that many people consider to be overly combative. We need help with less defensive phrasing.

NaNoWriMo is an organization in crisis, but an organization that has created so much joy and goodwill in the global writing community over the past 25 years...it deserves to survive and thrive. Hundreds of bestselling authors launched their careers with NaNoWriMo. Hundreds of thousands of creative people around the world have found community and found legitimacy as writers with our partnership.

We are facing possible extinction, not just because of this immediate situation, but because of the earlier scandal and numerous operational issues that were discovered too late. This is a defining moment in the organization's future and we just need a little help from those who have experience in this area and can lend perspective. What we can offer you is strong support around messaging. In other words, we won't need you to do some of the heavy lifting on writing. We're actually great writers. What we need help on is messaging direction, tone, and avoiding land mines. We will be better-than-average partners to the extent that we understand a little bit about communications.

We have outlined specific objectives, drafted possible messaging, and named specific quandaries and questions in an organized way. We have received preliminary feedback on our path forward from staff, Board, and trusted advisors. We just need thought partners who can help us make some high-level choices based on the complexity of our situation. From there, we feel that we can draft communications based on our plan. We would then want to resubmit the communications we draft to our Taproot team for further help with editing. We view ourselves as strong contributors to the process and simply need your feedback and iteration.