Association Crisis Communication Kudos: Nuclear Energy Institute

My first job out of college was–by sheer chance–at an association. The U.S. Council For Energy Awareness, to be exact…which has since changed its name to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). I got the job through an employment agency, and knew not one thing about either associations or nuclear energy, but it was a job and I took it. I stayed there for I think two or three years, working in media relations.

Fast forward to today and the horrible disasters in Japan and the subsequent nuclear reactor disasters, and I can’t help but think back to my early association days and wonder how things have changed since then in terms of media relations. So out of curiosity I visited NEI’s website and was so impressed with the way they’re addressing this crisis via both social media and traditional channels that I wanted to give them some props in my monthly guest spot here on SocialFishing.

What are they doing that’s so great? Well, for one thing, they’re doing SOMETHING rather than hiding from the barrage of criticism the nuclear energy industry is currently under as a result of this crisis. Right on their homepage is a prominent link:

Information on the Japanese Earthquake and Reactors in That Region

That link takes you to their news and events page, which has a bunch of resources and information, including a map of Japan’s nuclear energy reactors, a link to their radiation answers site, and even a link to donate to Japan’s relief efforts, which takes you to a page with a more than a dozen individual fundraising organizations dedicated to the cause. There is also a curated list of links to current news articles about the earthquake and reactor situations, as well as links to two different Twitter feeds–an overall NEI one and a dedicated “NEI Media” one.

I especially like the way their media relations manager is using Twitter–the account is “NEI Media” but the name on the account is his. While the account doesn’t have as many followers as the organizational one, they’re obviously doing something right because they’ve gotten some great coverage in mainstream media outlets like NPR and a Q&A with one of their executive directors on the Washington Post.

I can’t say I envy them the task of serving as a resource about a very emotionally-charged issue, but I will say that I’m impressed at the way they’re doing it.