There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the disaster which flows from the explosion on the British Petroleum oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, but one rings out clearly. It is far better to think first and talk later than the other way around.

At every turn over the past weeks – now approaching two months – spokespersons for British Petroleum have changed their message. From the total of oil escaping from the damaged rig (10,000, then 15,000, then 20,000 gallons) to the existence of plumes of oil beneath the surface (they don’t exist, they exist but they aren’t very big, they may exist but we haven’t found them), BP has rarely delivered the same message more than once; often, they’ve changed their message within the hour.

The reason for the competing, if not contrary, messages could be simple or sinister. It is perfectly reasonable to suspect that BP simply doesn’t know the answers to key questions because the circumstances are so new and the consequences so uncharted. It is also possible to assume that BP is acting with deliberation, consciously downplaying the impact of the crisis in order to ease their responsibility or ease public concern. Whatever the cause, the result is an object lesson in how to manage crisis communication badly.

Rather than admit the real truth – “We don’t know” or “We’re still trying to figure it out” or “Our data just isn’t complete” or even “We know the volume of oil pouring into the Gulf is massive but we have no reliable means of measuring it” – BP has put itself in the worst possible position. They have created a climate in which absolutely nobody – not experts, not the media, not the public at large – believes a word they say. That total loss of credibility not only harms their ability to squarely address the problems they face, it also creates an enduring and harsh long-term problem. It will be a long time before BP can issue a statement of any kind which is viewed with trust or confidence by the audience they seek to persuade.

Nonprofits and associations can learn a huge and vital lesson from this.

In crisis, it is far better to be sure than to be quick.

Delaying a response or a statement until the facts are firmly in hand is far more effective than having to double back, shift and change, alter or amend. Each new change, each new alteration from a previous statement subverts credibility and, in crisis, such subversion is amplified – it doesn’t take very long at all to reach a point where every statement issued is viewed as dishonest or, at the very least, unreliable. Once that label is affixed, only bad things follow.

In crisis communications, the public and the news media share one simple conviction: Truth is trust. Risking the loss of trust at any time is not good; risking it in crisis is a cardinal sin. Hold the BP lesson dear – it is as valuable as any an organization in crisis can ever learn.