Where Does Blogging Fit In?

I can’t even say that blogging has gotten a bad rap in the nonprofit world; it really doesn’t seem to have any kind of rap at all. You read the nonprofit benchmark studies

and social media research studies and all you hear about is Facebook, Twitter over and over again.
Even the latest books on branding and marketing for nonprofits either skip the topic altogether or touch on it briefly and then focus their attention back on Facebook and Twitter. To me, this is just plain strange. All those nonprofit authors and consultants have VERY active blogs; open ANY book on marketing and social media for for-profits and you’ll see lots of great info about blogging and the benefits of blogging. Nonprofits can get the exact same benefits from blogging.

Biggest Benefits

1. Blogs get indexed far more quickly and more often in search engines than your website; you can see significant improvements very quickly in your website traffic – providing you provide ample opportunities for people to get there from your blog.

2. Blogs are very flexible and user friendly for nonprofits to update and manage themselves. This is perfect for nonprofits that can’t afford expensive content management systems on their main site – they can use the blog for all their news updates and stream them onto their main site or onto their Facebook page.

3. Blogs give you more opportunities to tell your story, demonstrate your organization’s expertise, share your vision, give program updates, dispense important information and connect with your constituents in a much different way than Facebook and Twitter.

Keys to a Successful Nonprofit Blog

A clear identity
Deciding who will do the blog (one person or multiple) and what the focus of the blog will be (Executive Director’s thoughts and news, advocacy or connected to a specific campaign) and identifiable connection to your brand and your cause.

Other Examples:
Volunteer Match
AIDS Action Committee Blog
CityParks Blog
Focus on the Family’s Plugged In Blog
Mercy Corps Blog
Spark Blog

Interesting and easily scannable posts
Break up the text with photos, embedded videos, graphics and keep the text in very short paragraphs – using numbering and bullets when you can and bolding to separate items. When you finish your entry – go back and look for linking opportunities – any word or place that needs more description (link to another resource) and/or have it link back to additional info on your website or to related blog posts you have done earlier.

Frequent, regular posts
However you set it up – try to create a regular posting schedule; the success of the blog (and number of subscribers) will depend on the frequency of, and interest in, your posts. Some blogs are done by the executive director, or you can include additional staff and partners.

Choose 2-3 main bloggers within your organization and have them develop (or develop with them) a regular posting schedule so that they take turns in some way to make at least 3 posts per week. Find 2-3 other blogs that you can “partner” with – exchanging guest blogs, reciprocal links etc. – related to your cause. Find guest bloggers – ask someone related to your organization to write a one-time, occasional or regular post for your organization. Give them guidelines or topic suggestions and you can either give them access to post themselves or they can submit posts to you.

Elements of a blog

Main news page
A standard blog template will have just the blog posts going straight down with the latest post at the top and usually 2 columns – the main column for the posts and the 2nd column for the sidebar. On the main page of the blog you can have more blogs showing by inserting READ MORE. The main page can also be customized to have a more interesting design or additional columns or even a slideshow at the top. The AED Hub blog has a customized template with an interesting date/post preview layout.

Other Examples:
Enviroblog
Alz.org Blog

Sidebar
A sidebar where you can add widgets to display the latest posts, archived posts, search function, categories, blogroll/resource links, RSS subscribe and other widgets you can add to display text, graphic ads, social media buttons and other custom features.

About Us Page
A blog will have an About Us page that lists the blogger(s) and their brief bios, info about the organization and purpose of the blog and a contact form.

Additional Pages
Some blogs have additional pages that group posts by a specific topic, or gather information from readers, promote specific programs or activities. Check out the extra page called Green Gift Monday, a campaign page on the Nature Conservancy Blog

Some Post Types

You don’t always have to come up with a full-blown story for a blog post. Here are some other types of posts you can do:

1. List Posts - This can be a simple numbered list with links to outside resources, a grouping of your own previous posts, or a list with brief descriptions or photos/graphics. You can also use lists as a small portion of the post – within it. Lists are great for easy scanning.
Example: Bread Blog

2. Link Posts – perfect for scanning for news and then commenting with link back to the news item – you can comment on the post or expand upon it, link to it as an example within your topic/post, do a quick 2-3 question interview of the person who posted the news and link back to it. this can be as simple as finding a YouTube video related to your cause (or, of course, your own) and embedding it in a post with a comment.
Example: Tutor Mentor Blog

3. Call to Action post – ask that the readers do something specific i.e. Sign up for your newsletter, take a poll, give their opinion, write a comment, donate, buy something, answer a question

4. Review posts – review a book, CD, or some other resource that your constituents might be interested in.

For additional examples of nonprofit blogs, see the Nonprofit Blog Exchange’s listing of blogs by and for nonprofit organizations

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