Outreach Team: Introduction

An Informed Public Is a Prepared Public

The Community Outreach Team is focused on reaching the community with education about emergency preparedness, information about your organization’s events and training opportunities, and weather- and disaster-related news and warnings.

Without communicating fear, the team encourages self-empowerment and meaningful action. Although it may take longer to create change without using fear, you will find that by using hope and encouragement, people’s participation in the effort is longer lived and you will create a town you want to live in even if disaster never happens.

The work of the Outreach Team is crucial to ensuring that every community member feels informed, connected, and empowered.

Pre-Disaster Responsibilities

Website and Blog: The team is responsible for maintaining the organization’s website and writing articles for the blog. 

Social Media: In addition, the team manages the social media accounts for the organization. These accounts consist of the most effective options for your community, whether Tik Tok, Facebook, BlueSky, YouTube, Instagram, and/or X. 

Printed and Online Materials: The team also supports all the other teams in their community outreach efforts, by making posters, flyers, brochures, news releases, and other printed and online materials. Marketing materials that achieve a consistent look and feel will be more effective in their communication and better represent your group. This is especially important as you begin to create partnerships with other entities in your town. 

Public Calendar: This team might also be responsible for managing the organization’s public-facing calendar. 

Public Events: The Team staffs informational booths at public education events, like the annual Day of Preparedness event.

Disaster Responsibilities

When disaster strikes, key members of the team will report to the Emergency Operations Center to support the community Public Information Officer (PIO) and Emergency Manager (EM) in their efforts to inform the public and connect with news media. This support might consist of drafting messages for the PIO and EM to review or even in writing a daily news bulletin to be messengered to or read to (via radio) the Disaster Hubs. If there is an external physical news board (e.g., a large whiteboard mounted on the outside of the building), the Team will manually write messages on it for the public.

Recovery Responsibilities

During recovery, the Team continues to support the regular dissemination of information to keep people calm, help them understand where resources are available, and manage expectations for recovery. 

The Team might also assist in managing the repository of information about missing persons/animals to facilitate reunification or death notifications.