Community—from “com” (together) and “unity”—is the foundation of our work. When crises threaten that unity, you need a team proven in high-stakes environments to restore trust and strengthen bonds. At Karat Communications, we bring decades of consulting expertise including U.S. Department of Justice experience to help heal communities under pressure.

Strengthening Community Relations

Crises like protests, discrimination allegations, natural disasters, or police-community tensions test even the strongest leaders. We help you turn these challenges into opportunities to build resilience and trust. Our clients—servant leaders and community guardians—rely on us to navigate the toughest, most sensitive situations with precision and care as crisis management specialists.

From rapid development and growth to increased diversity, natural disasters, allegations of discrimination, and more, crises are inevitable. The question is will your team be ready when they do?

Karat Communications helps leaders leverage these challenges to build stronger communities and restore public trust.

Community Relations Clients:

From working with city councils and human relations commissions to county commissioners, city managers, Mayors, law enforcement, advocacy groups, faith leaders, university leaders, provosts, student groups, high school faculty and students, and more. Karat Communications has experience in not just improving community relations but helping communities navigate crises and divisive times to come out stronger on the other side.

Addressing Community Crises:

Issues we have helped communities address include but are not limited to:

• Public Protests and Demonstrations
• Allegations of Discrimination or Bias
• Navigating Natural Disasters
• Police Community Relations
• Environmental Justice Concerns
• Political Division
• Immigration and Integration Tension and Protests
• Rapid Economic Development – Population Explosion
• Career Agitator Groups like ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter (BLM)
• Bias Based Bullying in High Schools and Universities
• Hate Crimes Response and Prevention
• Religious Conflict

 

Community Solutions:

While every situation and community is unique the following represents an idea of the constellation of services we provide.

• Confidential Counseling – Private guidance for navigating sensitive issues, reputation management, and choosing response strategies moving forward.

• Strategic Action Plans – Action plans give testament to intentions and increase stakeholder buy-in.

• Facilitated Dialogue – Strengthen Community Relations through structured conversations that clarify concerns and unite diverse stakeholders.

• Community Workshops & Work Groups – One of the most effective ways to address community tension is collaboratively problem solving!

• Resolution & Mediation Agreement Drafting – Declarations of community values, and official mediation agreements can be transformational tools.

• Creation of Human Relations Commissions or Committees – Often recommended for larger or fast-growing regions with increasing diversity.

• Crisis Communications

Karat Communications has expertise working in violent contexts, situations of mass unrest, large-scale community tension, and more. We provide on-site and remote counsel, stakeholder engagement assistance, and support with law enforcement coordination.

Capacity Building:

Every community engagement service we provide comes with templates to help your team build the requisite skillset to effectively manage crises the next time they arise. In fact, we train the leaders we work with as we believe in capacity building.

Work Karat Communications routinely conducts includes:

Advising on protest response, demonstration planning, advise on leadership voices and roles, ghost write press releases, provide talking points, coach officials on media relations in crises, meet with protest groups, support law enforcement response, and

Our Approach:

We are nimble, flexible, and highly mobile! We are confidential, certain, creative and collaborative. We are prescriptive, perceptive, humble, and fast acting. We are comfortable behind the scenes and love bringing out the potential of the communities and leaders we serve.

As Leadership Communications and Crisis Management experts we apply our conflict resolution skills to virtually any environment whether it’s embedded in official teams, providing confidential advice unseen, as ghost writers providing talking points, writing speeches, media coaching, as mediators, facilitators, and more.

Experience with Diverse Stakeholder Groups:

From political groups to religious groups and more, Karat Communications routinely works with clients from state, county, city, township, and law enforcement to serve communities that identify as Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Hindu, Christian, Somali, Karen, LGBTQ, African American, Hispanic, Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Illegal Immigrants, Women, and many more.

Explore our Leadership Communications services or get your Online Brand Audit today!