Disaster Response and Recovery, 3rd Edition

7Managing Public Information, Donations, and Volunteers: Expected Difficulties and Benefits

STARTING POINT

Pretest to assess your knowledge of managing public information, donations, and volunteers.

Determine where you need to concentrate your effort.

What You’ll Learn in This Chapter

• The types of media that become involved when disasters occur.
• The goals of public information/relations after disasters.
• How social media is different than traditional media outlets.
• Problems associated with donations management.
• The benefit of disaster volunteers.

After Studying This Chapter, You’ll Be Able To

• Understand the roles of the media in disasters.
• Harness the media/social media effectively after a disaster.
• Examine how to overcome donations management difficulties.
• Prepare for an outpouring of in‐kind disaster assistance.
• Operate closely with volunteers and volunteer associations.

Goals and Outcomes

• Provide important news updates to your community.
• Disseminate public information through diverse outlets.
• Enhance your agency’s public image.
• Distribute donations for the benefit of disaster victims.
• Integrate volunteers into disaster response and recovery operations.

INTRODUCTION

One measure of resilience is your ability to deal with the expected reactions of people and organizations to disasters. Members of the media rush to the scene to report on impacts and response operations. Meanwhile, citizens share their perspectives about the disaster through social media posts, and ...