Werth-It Fundraising Blog

What if you had to take off the month of October and stay home?  Are you prepared?

Governments world-wide are saying that Swine Flu, H1NI strain, could kill hundreds of thousands or even millions of people worldwide, including 90,000 people in the United States.  Half of all workers could be sick, and many more would be staying home out of fear or to take care of their family.  Since a friend just lost his brother to swine flu, I thought I’d write about some things to do to prepare.

First, and most importantly, your work should have a strict policy that no one comes to the office if they’re sick.  If necessary, revise your sick leave policy so that everyone has a certain number of days that can be used for vacation or sick leave.  Also, someone in your office should review the status of employees’ leave, and make it a specific point to tell people who don’t have sufficient leave that they should not come to the office if they’re ill.  You don’t want your entire office infected because one person didn’t have any more leave.

I’ve personally been infected because someone came to the office sick.  I came down with “pink eye” — it was apparent who gave it to me, since only one person had it, no one else in my life had it, and I had never had it before or since.  You can believe that I didn’t say, “Oh, I’m so glad she came to the office — she’s so important to our efforts.”  So don’t feel that people will be grateful that you drag your sick body in to work — trust me, no one is that important.

Next, be prepared at home to wait out an illness that may take weeks to resolve.  What if you couldn’t go to the grocery store for all of October?  What would you do?  If half of the country’s population is home sick, groceries may not be in the stores because truckers were too sick to drive, or there may not be personnel to sell groceries to you.  Do you have enough toilet paper?  Canned food?  There should be enough for you and your family.  Include medications in this as well — this is not the time to run out of medications.  Besides prescriptions, I would stock up on anything that could make illness easier: cough and cold medication, stomach medications.  I think you should also have cash at home — it doesn’t hurt to keep some extra around.

If you have the capacity to work from home, I would prepare for that.  Can you set up your home computer to access the one at the office?  Do you have cell or home numbers for your colleagues?  What would you do in a crisis?  Do you have a crisis plan?

Do you have your mailing list available without relying on going to your office or holding it at a vendor?  What if that vendor isn’t available?  Make sure you have a copy of your list offsite, in a way that you can access it.  If you need to mail your donors, you don’t want to be a hostage to a vendor who may close their office.

Also, this is not the time for “Just-In-Time” delivery of goods.  If you have a policy to wait until you’re almost out of supplies, counting on things to be delivered promptly, I would rethink that.  Don’t run low on gas, paper, letterhead, or anything else you need to get the job done.  Again, if half the population is sick, you can’t count on the gas station to have gasoline, or Office Depot to deliver paper, or your local printer to be open and waiting.  Have back-up vendors, and have plenty of whatever you need.

Even if swine flu doesn’t hit, these are good preparations for anything.  I remember once when a blizzard was predicted, and a friend told me she was going to the store for toilet paper.  I was shocked that she didn’t keep extra rolls in her house.  Personally, in my life, I’ve been stuck at home because of blizzards, a riot, smoke and ash from fires, office closings, power outages, an earthquake, a massive freeway closure, even rainstorms.  And remember the days after September 11?  I feel better knowing I’m prepared.  Are you?

If you have questions about emergency preparedness for nonprofit organizations, please contact me at katherine@werth-it.comor by writing a comment on my blog at www.werth-it.com/blog.