Join the Net2 ThinkTank: How Can Nonprofits Use Flickr. Please respond by August 27, 2008.
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NetSquared enables social benefit organizations to leverage the tools of the social web.
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- Scary Bloggie 4?
Scary Bloggie 4?
Emily, creator of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange, asks why nonprofits don't blog. I think it's because blogging is too often touted as a radical, new end in itself, not as a tool in a larger strategy for building relationships with donors, volunteers, members, and clients.
Relatedly, we need to engage more nonprofit communicators and fundraising professionals in the conversation. No matter how well intended they may be, techies and Web gurus often promote blogs and the like without regard for sound principles of nonprofit fundraising and relationship building -- principles that apply online and off.
Anil Dash over at Six Apart warns that "A lot of folks who are blogging 'experts' talk about blogs in a way that scares the hell out of normal business people."
They're also scaring normal nonprofit people, which is why I wrote this (rather long) post, a blog can be like a business lunch. My goal was to dispel some of the myths about blogging and offer a good starter model -- a business-lunch blog-- that could work for many nonprofits as well as businesses.
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Comments
NPOs and blogging
Most non-profits are not that different from for-profits when it comes to marketing. They're still operating by the communication and marketing principles of the '90s and are paralyzed by the fear of besmirching their "brand." So they try to maintain tight control of communications, an approach that is antithetical to blogging. 'Til they get a deeper appreciation of how the desire for transparency and authenticity permeates internet culture, they're going to have problems with most net innovations.
Besides, I don't think it's so important that the organizations blog as it is for them to encourage their constituents who've had experience with them to blog. Praise from someone who has really benefited from the work of a NPO is PR that no amount of money can buy.
David Collin
Director of Organizational Learning
American Cancer Society
http://www.fispace.org
Non-profit blogs
I have started a blog in a non-profit child welfare treatment agency. Very few people in my world know about or understand blogging. They have been enthusiastic about my efforts, however. I have not yet found any other people in the area of treatment for children and families, or treating trauma, that are blogging. Do you know of any? I would like for my blog to become more interactive with others, and would welcome any suggestions as to how to move further into the blogging world. Thanks.