a blog can be like a business lunch
Beth Kanter, a thought leader in the world of nonprofit blogging, recently shared some useful criteria to help nonprofits decide whether to blog or not. While I agree with most of them, I think that two (yes, if you want to enable many voices; no, if things must be vetted by a central authority) could, if interpreted narrowly, inhibit some nonprofits from blogging.
There is at least one model that doesn't meet all of her criteria, but would, I think, be a great approach for many nonprofits. It's a “business-lunch blog” -- a simple, general blog that chronicles events and ideas in the life of the nonprofit organization. I call it that because the tone and topics are similar to that of a conversation you might have with one of your stakeholders -– a donor, client, staff member, board member -- over lunch. I also think the metaphor helps overcome popular misconceptions about blogs, e.g., that they are only suited to heavy political discussions or chronicles of the antics of your cats.
I’ve found that these misconceptions lead some nonprofit leaders to believe that blogging will require them to publish in-depth commentary on their nonprofit’s issue every day, to divulge personal habits, to engage endlessly in Web conversations, or to let their "freak flag fly." While all of these have their place, these options are for “some of the bloggers some of the time.” None are ever required when publishing a business-lunch blog.
While a business-lunch blog could certainly involve many contributors, it can just as easily and effectively be authored by -- gasp -- a central authority, even -- gasp again -- PR and marketing people, as the case seems to be with this excellent example of a business-lunch blog from the Air Conditioning Contractors of America. (The gasps are not poking fun at Beth, just at some of the dogma I’ve heard about nonprofit and business blogging.)
Even if only one person posts to the blog on behalf of the whole organization, I think it’s best, and more in keeping with the more personal nature of blogging, if the poster’s name is published with each entry. (I recommend this especially if there’s a chance that more than one person will post to the blog in the future.) Note, however, that the posts on this well regarded blog of the humanitarian organization Interplast are not identified with a particular author -- proof that a blog can be great even if it doesn’t follow every rule ever published about blogging.
The frequency of posts will depend on the particular nonprofit, but I tend to think that posting weekly, and probably no more than two to three times a week, would be appropriate for a business-lunch blog.
Allowing comments is highly desirable, but not always critical. While I wish that Terry Axelrod allowed for comments in her Raising More Money blog, as someone interested in learning more about her acclaimed fundraising model, I nonetheless benefit from her posts.
o The article in today's Name of Local Newspaper (links to paper) about casualties in the Iraq war underlines the importance of our new initiative (links to info on initiative) to provide comprehensive services to vets who are disabled…
o Name of Person (links to bio) on our staff just won the Name of Award (links to info on award) for environmental advocacy. Name has been instrumental in our Blue Lakes campaign (links to info on campaign)…
o We've just put up the registration page (links to page) for our annual benefit -- the band this year is Betsy Redhead and the Boneshakers and the tickets are only $75.00. As the federal government continues to slash funding of supportive services to people who are homeless, the Name of Event is essential to our ability to….(links to info on mission or important programs) …
o The mayor announced yesterday that she would not support the restaurant smoking ban (links to announcement by Mayor). Please help us persuade her that this is not in the best interest of the citizens of Whoville by sending a letter (links to model letter)…
o Name of CEO was interviewed today for a Channel 10 story (links to TV station story summary) about local theater groups. An important fact that the TV news report omitted was that...
Some benefits of the business-lunch blog approach:
o Stakeholders and potential supporters are engaged in a way that is more intimate and immediate than that of traditional newsletters, especially if comments are allowed. (Note, printed newsletters will remain important and effective vehicles for many nonprofits, even for those that blog.)
o A business-lunch blog is an efficient way to share information that you want all key stakeholders to know. The staff, board, and major donors of nonprofits I’ve worked with recently all had access to email. If this is true for your nonprofit, encourage these major stakeholders to subscribe to RSS or email feeds of your blog.
o If you plan to post frequently on a number of topics that will not interest all stakeholders equally, consider a blogging platform that allows you to categorize posts and RSS feeds. This allows readers to select which topics they wish to read.
o If it suits your organization, your blog may grow to include more than one contributor. Contributors may even go on to publish their own "spin off" blogs, all of which could be aggregated for the user.
While particularly suited to small nonprofits, a business-lunch blog may be a good solution for organizations of all kinds -- private, nonprofit, public -- and of all sizes. For some, it will be a starting point; for others, it will be all they ever need.
There are, of course, other good starter models, at least one of which I plan to discuss in the future, but I believe this approach is one that many nonprofits would do well to adopt and one that more nonprofit-tech evangelists would do well to promote.
Thoughts? I welcome them in the "comments" section below.
Wow. What crazy timing. This is exactly what we are working on at Interplast and will be rolling out in a couple of weeks. I completely agree with everything you said.
One of the challenges we have dealt with internally is which people in the office can post, about what, how "controlled" is it, etc. Some of us have also said "Who cares about our office, people want to see what's happening with the kids and doctors we help in developing countries". We have come to the conclusion that people might be interested in seeing how we make decisions or craft policies, and what we do on a daily basis. We recognize that donors have lots of worthy options regarding their donations. We hope that by shedding light into the inner workings of Interplast, people will feel more connected to us, understand why we work so hard and hopefully, consider donating to us.
When we roll out our "Business Lunch Blog" I'll post another comment here with the link. I'd love to hear what you think about it.
Posted by: Seth Mazow | March 09, 2006 at 02:34 PM
Celeste - thanks for dropping my to let me know about your blog.
One of the lessons I think that is to be learned from your examples of "business lunch" postings is becoming aware of how much news one's organization really is generating -- news your supporters might want to be a part of.
We put up a bulletin board in our office labelled "what's new" to collect stories for our newsletter, and I'm always amazed at the stuff I "knew" about but had failed to catagorize as newsworthy that shows up there.
--michael
Posted by: Michael Stein | March 10, 2006 at 05:57 AM
Hi Celeste, I've come back here several months later after you first told me about this blog. Great blog, Celeste.
Here's a question I would ask of you and anyone else proposing that nonprofits use blogging as a communications tool:
what can you tell about your traffic to your blog that would support this theory? How many of our target audience (or rather, the target audience of nonprofits) reading blogs?
Maybe I should be posting this elsewhere... But I'd sure like to see a discussion of this topic.
I was feeling this way when I first went "back in" to a full time job in January, and I feel it even more now: as a full-time nonprofit staffer, I barely have enough time to get through my email, much less browse the Web and Blogosphere. The only reason I'm here today is because it's summer, it's a slow day, and I'm cleaning out my inbox!
Who is actually READING blogs? Is there enough traffic out there to make it worth the time of resource-strapped nonprofits to produce them?
-- Jillaine
Posted by: Jillaine Smith | July 31, 2006 at 09:40 AM
These are good questions, and I will try, soon, to open up a fuller discussion on them either here, at Netsquared, or in both places. A few thoughts:
Studies show that search engines "like" blogs. I can say personally that I get a lot of hits through Google for the search term "fake newspaper" because of one of my posts with that term in the title.
Although attention for my "fake newspaper" post is not important to me, it shows, I think, that a nonprofit posting on topics related to its mission could attract attention with decent blog posts.
I totally sympathize with "information overload," and I think that as blogs proliferate, some of the most popular will be those that serve as effective filters by offering readers information that is simple, accurate, important, and clear.
I think nonprofits should also use services such as those provided by Feedburner, which allow readers to subscribe to new posts via email. For more sophisticated readers, allowing them to subscribe to particular categories of posts is another way to help readers filter information.
Thanks again, Jilliane, for stopping by.
Posted by: celeste w@studio 501c | August 07, 2006 at 09:52 PM
No need to post, just wanted to thank you for the insightful and helpful article.
Posted by: Meghan | August 27, 2007 at 09:24 PM