It's 2pm on Friday afternoon and you're working hard in the media office when a colleague pops in and asks if you've heard the rumour about that trouble with one of the children your charity works with in Leeds?

You haven't. But you know that if it is true you'll be hearing all about it soon enough. With a sinking feeling in your stomach you remember the last time this happened and you just know that you won't be catching that early train to your weekend away.

What do you do next? In the next five minutes? Hour?

Here are a few tips to get you ready.

Consider these tips before the potential crisis happens. There is little point in trying to remember when the phones start ringing from journalists looking for information.

Get the facts. How many rumours sweep around organisations that never come to anything? Don't judge anyone or anything until someone with reliable knowledge gives you the facts.

Let's say the allegation is true and those closest to the child are able to provide all the facts. Apart from such information you'll need to know who is around today, all over the weekend (including evenings) as well as next week to speak to the media. Have all interviewees' phone numbers especially mobiles and make sure they tell you if they're off hiking where reception is notoriously poor.

Keep records of what happens from the time you get the facts (and until then do not speculate with media callers as it certainly won't help you) and make sure all calls are followed up. Yes, even if that means you are contacting an online newsletter you never heard of late at night.

Think about how you are handling this will look in the cold light of day in say two weeks' time. Will you be able to say you did your best, even when working under immense pressure, to deal with media requests while protecting those involved?

Know your organisation's policies, procedures and routine information about the area under scrutiny. And if you don't know this stuff- find someone who does. The individual may never appear in front of the media but they will be invaluable in keeping you on the right track.

And stay cool. Remember how you said at your job interview that you were "calm in a crisis?" Prove it. And remember you have to work with your colleagues after this is all over which is worth bearing in mind if you are getting frustrated at the length of time it takes them to give you a couple of simple facts.

Book time off so you can have that weekend away- next weekend you will need it by then!

Norma Johnston

Armed with these, a communications professional has the best chance of raising awareness of their charity's cause.

After all, they show what your charity is all about.

I'm talking about case studies- accounts from the people your charity supports, campaigns on behalf of and, ultimately, whose lives you aim to improve.

Turning their stories into compelling case studies will do more for your communications than long-winded key messages, overused stats and too many details about how you're funded.

Yet, it's remarkable how many charity publications I see which are case study-less. There may be comment from the chief executive, a long list of achievements and sponsors but no word from the people who can best promote what the charity does.

Over the last few weeks, we've been working with a children's charity to help them build up a database of case studies.

We've talked to families who've been supported by the charity so the communications team can use them in future publications, campaigns or work with the media.

Their words and experiences tell the charity's story best.

Well-written, relevant and useful case studies can help tell your charity's story better too.

It's worth telling everyone in your organisation that you're looking to set up a database of case studies and to let you know if they have contact with potential interviewees. They might be people who've accessed your services, contacted you for support or worked on a campaign before.

Too much charity writing starts with long and laborious descriptions of how funding was won, or with over-detailed background, like this:

The Children's Health Trust has been awarded £300,000 from the Treetops Foundation, to assist its work with young people in deprived areas. The funding will provide places for hundreds of children to go on adventure weekends at Fulton Forest Park in Yorkshire.

Including case studies, starting with the action and then showing how your project has become involved, is much more engaging:

The teenager steams around the corner at nearly 60mph, skids across the oily tarmac and slams the go-kart into a pile of old tyres. Time stands still for a few seconds. And then Stephen waves, gives a thumbs up, and smiles. "It beats stealing cars," he shouts over the din of the others karts. "I never went that fast in any motor I ever nicked."

Trina Wallace is a writer at ngo.media, a copywriting agency for charities.

Here's a simple and fun exercise for both your Monday morning press meeting and your next away day. Pick up the Sunday papers (or women's magazines or lads' mags or any category you like really) and get everybody in your team to skim read them and imagine which of your stories you could get placed in them.

So the scene is like this. It's 11am Monday morning and your fundraising manager is telling everybody which celebrity going on the latest challenge event could be placed in the colour supplements, then the CEO is waxing lyrically about how you should respond to the appalling coverage of the latest health story, while the new intern has identified the four business stories where you might have an angle.

The point is this. Too many charities start from the point of view of 'how can we broadcast to the world what we want to say' when in reality a more realistic approach may be to adopt a 'how can we wheedle our point of view into what the media are already saying'.

Another good way of using the same approach is to ask people at a staff conference or management team to come up with the headline or story that would be most likely to get them into any one of five publications (say the Sun, the Guardian, Heat, the Rochdale Echo and Third Sector). At one charity conference the winning group came up with 'charity boss in pants down drama'. After all, for the sake of media coverage CEOs need to be prepared to go that extra mile.

Joe Saxton is chair and founder of CharityComms. In his day job Joe is driver of ideas and co-founder of specialist research consultancy nfpSynergy

It's easy for any charity to be overwhelmed by the difficulties of getting media coverage. Every publication seems to be full of stories just as interesting as your own- but someone else's is covered not yours. One simple approach is to focus not on what you have to say but on who you want to say it to. The journalist relationship is just as important as the story itself. The good news is that any charity can adopt what I call the 'big five' approach.

The idea is simple- who are the five (or ten for larger organisations) most important journalists for your organisation? These might be the cub reporter on the local paper, the relevant correspondent on a trade publication, or a correspondent on a national newspaper. Having identified these five people work out what you know about them. Who in your organisation currently has the best relationship with them? What stories do they currently write about? What has each written about your organisation? As you gather the information make a table of what you know about them: their contact details, their interests, where they live, what they write about, when you last met them and so on.

Once you have the list- make sure you sit down and use it once a month. See who might go for a coffee with which journalist on the list, which of the five might be right for an invitation to an event. Give them a call to ask whether a story you are thinking about might be relevant to them. In short manage the relationship with them to maximise the benefit for you and your organisation.

Joe Saxton is chair and founder of CharityComms. In his day job Joe is driver of ideas and co-founder of specialist research consultancy nfpSynergy