A communications lead rarely needs a board to understand media relations. The board does need to see risks early, decide on accurate information, and know that no communications consideration outranks the safety of the people the organisation serves. Translation is the method. Candour is the point.
What the Oxfam GB board was not told
On 9 February 2018, The Times reported that Oxfam GB staff had used prostitutes in Haiti in 2011, in the aftermath of the earthquake. Oxfam’s own investigation had already established sexual misconduct, and chief executive Mark Goldring told MPs that Oxfam’s leaders and the committee now regarded those relationships as exploitative. Several staff had left in 2011, and Goldring regretted that the charity had not spelled out why.
A few days after the story broke, Goldring gave The Guardian an interview in which he asked whether the charity had “murdered babies in their cots”. On 20 February he apologised to the International Development Committee for the remark. He told MPs that about 7,000 regular donors had cancelled in ten days. He also accepted that Oxfam’s 2011 reports to the Charity Commission, which spoke of sexual misconduct, bullying and breaches of the code of conduct, had told half a story. Caroline Thomson, chair of trustees since October 2017, said the 2011 reports to the regulator, the government and the press should have said plainly that the allegations concerned prostitution.
The Commission’s 2019 inquiry went further. It found that Oxfam GB’s reports to donors and to the regulator were not full and frank enough, and that its approach to disclosure had at times been shaped by a wish to protect its reputation and donor relationships. It found that the charity had not adequately followed up whether victims were minors, had not reported allegations of child abuse, and had appeared to treat senior staff more leniently than junior ones. It also found that weak assurance and oversight left trustees unable to see serious failures in case handling.
The case is often told as a crisis communications failure. The record supports a harder reading. The failure was one of disclosure and duty of care, and the people harmed were at its centre. The reputational damage followed. For a communications lead, the lesson is not how to sound better under pressure. Information about harm has to reach the people accountable for acting on it, in full, whatever it does to the brand.
Who sits at the table
The 2026 Spencer Stuart Board Index found that 64 percent of incoming S&P 500 directors bring CEO or financial experience, up from 59 percent in 2025. Boards appointed 364 new independent directors, the fewest since 2016. That is corporate data, and charity boards recruit differently. Still, a director trained in finance or governance is a workable audience, one that responds to exposure, deadlines and decision rights.
A BoardSource survey of US nonprofit chief executives, summarised by the Nonprofit Law Blog, found that 49 percent said their boards lacked the right members to establish trust with the communities they serve. A communications lead working with such a board has a second job beyond translating for donors: bringing in the view of the people the organisation exists to serve.
Drop the dialect
In 1990, Stanford doctoral student Elizabeth Newton asked volunteers to tap out well-known songs for listeners to name. The tappers estimated that half would be recognised. Listeners guessed 3 of 120, or 2.5 percent. Chip and Dan Heath later popularised the result in Made to Stick as the curse of knowledge. Terms such as earned media, share of voice and narrative are the melody that only the tapper hears.
| What the communicator says | What the director hears | What lands better |
|---|---|---|
| “We need a crisis communications plan” | A cost line | “When an allegation of harm is received, who must be told, in what order, and within what time?” |
| “Our earned media reach grew” | Activity, not result | “Coverage rose, and this is what happened to donor retention and partner enquiries afterwards” |
| “We should be more proactive on narrative” | A preference | “These are the decisions needed from the board this quarter, and what each one risks” |
| “Reputational risk is elevated” | An adjective | “A named risk, an owner, a trigger, and who is harmed if it happens” |
The right-hand column borrows the grammar of the risk register, which directors already read.
Respect the paper limit
Board Intelligence, a board software vendor with a commercial interest, reports from its own self-completed survey tools that the average board pack runs 226 pages, up 30 percent since 2019, and that 63 percent of respondents rate their packs weak or poor. The tools drew more than 1,000 respondents from about 700 organisations, so the sample is self-selected. The same firm cites an average of about 288 pages elsewhere, so the numbers are indicative only.
A 2026 report from the Society for Corporate Governance and Board Intelligence, as covered by Governance Intelligence, found that half of organisations had been told in the past two years that materials were too long. Forty-three percent had been told they were too detailed, and 29 percent had been asked for more focus on strategy.
Board Intelligence recommends papers of three to five pages, with an executive summary and a statement of whether the board is asked to note, discuss or decide. It also warns that a pack containing only good news can signal a culture where management fears the consequences of reporting problems. A communications paper that reports only wins fails the board.
Report outcomes, including the unwelcome ones
The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) published Barcelona Principles 4.0 in 2025, in a revision led by Richard Bagnall. Its core message is that communication should be judged by outcomes and impact. One summary in the CIPR’s magazine put it bluntly: clippings are not currency.
A board dashboard needs a handful of indicators tied to the strategy the board already approved, such as donor retention, partner enquiries or staff trust. It should also carry signals that flatter no one: complaints, unanswered enquiries, internal warnings and whistleblowing trends. The Commission found that Oxfam GB failed to heed warnings, including from its own staff. A dashboard of reach and sentiment would not have shown them.
Make disclosure the rule
In the UK, the Charity Commission’s guidance says serious incidents, actual or alleged, must be reported promptly, with full and frank disclosure. Responsibility rests with the trustees, and safeguarding allegations also go to the police or relevant local agencies. Other jurisdictions impose their own duties, and local legal advice applies.
Communications staff do not make those disclosure decisions, but they sit close to the information and to the pressure to soften it. The following rules are recommendations for a board to adopt in calm, not findings drawn from the sources above.
| Principle | Practice |
|---|---|
| People first | Those at risk and the relevant authorities are told before any public statement is drafted |
| No reputational veto | Reputation is never a reason to withhold or soften a report to a regulator, funder or authority |
| A route around conflict | The communications lead has a route to the chair or lead trustee that does not depend on anyone implicated |
| Accurate statements | Statements say what is known, what is not and what is being done, and never compare the organisation’s treatment to the harm suffered |
| Survivor privacy | Identifying details are not published, and those affected are consulted where possible |
| Rehearsal | The protocol is walked through with the chair and chief executive each year |
Give directors a job
Directors outside communications can still do useful work: representing the organisation at events, speaking to donors and partners, and passing on what they hear. They need a short briefing that states the facts the organisation can confirm, the limits of what they may say, and the one person who speaks to the press. If the honest answer is that something is not yet known, that is the answer. A paper that states the decision needed at the top gives directors something to decide before they reach for a pen.
A working rhythm
These are editorial recommendations.
| Stage | Practice |
|---|---|
| Before the meeting | Agree the decision needed with the chief executive and chair; send a one-page note first |
| In the pack | Three to five pages, decision at the top, outcomes before outputs, bad news included, monitoring in an appendix |
| In the room | Plain terms, risk language, one named owner per risk, one question put to the board |
| Between meetings | Short written alert when a risk crosses its agreed trigger |
| Once a year | Rehearse the disclosure protocol with the board |
The test of the relationship is whether a director could tell a donor or a regulator what the organisation knows about its worst risks to the people it serves, and what it is doing about them. The Commission concluded that all charities are judged on their actions, not their words. A board that cannot see the facts has no way to close the gap between the two.
Sources
- UK Charity Commission, Charity Commission reports on inquiry into Oxfam GB, 11 June 2019 (withdrawn from GOV.UK in November 2023 as no longer current; retained here as the record of the 2019 findings)
- UK Parliament International Development Committee, Oral evidence: Sexual exploitation in the aid sector, 20 February 2018
- Third Sector, Oxfam chief says people are “gunning” for his charity, February 2018
- UK Charity Commission, How to report a serious incident in your charity
- Spencer Stuart, 2026 Board Index new director snapshot, July 2026
- Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 2026 U.S. Board Index highlights (Spencer Stuart)
- Nonprofit Law Blog, Key nonprofit governance report: Leading with Intent (summary of the 2021 BoardSource index)
- Elizabeth L. Newton, The rocky road from actions to intentions, Stanford University PhD dissertation, 1990
- Board Intelligence, Board packs are getting worse (updated January 2026)
- Board Intelligence, Does your board pack evidence good governance? (updated April 2026)
- Board Intelligence, 5 costly board pack errors
- Governance Intelligence, Directors are drowning in board papers (reporting a 2026 Society for Corporate Governance and Board Intelligence study)
- PR News, Barcelona Principles 4.0: reinventing PR measurement for a new era
- CIPR Influence, How Barcelona 4.0 puts strategy at the heart of PR measurement (July 2025)
