Sometimes organizations are unclear about the difference between a blog and a bulletin board or discussion board. Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal written by one or more authors that is frequently updated, usually with posts in chronological order and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or authors and can provide timely and interesting behind the scenes perspectives. A bulletin board or discussion board is a place where people can post messages on various topics. These are generally organized by discussion topic.

Here is a link to an interesting article about nonprofits and blogs: http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/section/466.html

Because I have a blog and write about issues of interest to nonprofits, I’m participating in the nonprofit blog exchange. Learn more about the exchange and the other orgs involved here.

As part of the exchange, each participant was asked to look at another participant’s blog. I read the Green Media Toolshed blog. They have an excellent posting about The Importance of the Blogosphere. It talks about the fact that blogs are becoming an important source for news – especially news not covered in the main stream so even if you don’t have a blog for your own organization, you should be tapping into blogs that cover the issues of concern for your organization. You can send press releases to blogs. You might even consider advertising on blogs.

NPR had a great story on this topic the other day too. It was about how bloggers are not just lone writers anymore. They are organizing themselves into networks. The story compared the evolution of blogging to the evolution of radio and TV. You can listen to the story online here.

When you think about it, the Nonprofit blog exchange is actually a great example of how those people who work for or with nonprofits can organize as a group of bloggers.

• 57% of Teen Internet Users Create, Remix or Share Content Online
• Half of Online Teens Download Music, One in Three Download Video;
• One in Five Have a Blog;
• One in Five Remix Others’ Digital Material into Their Own Creations

If you work for a nonprofit organization that provides services to teens, seeks out teens for volunteer opportunities, or strives to educate teens about important issues, you should keep their online use top of mind. Also start looking toward the future when those who are teens now will be the donors that you want to attract.

Read the Pew Report here:

http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/166/report_display.asp

Pew Internet and American Life has data on use of the Internet among Seniors as well – they are more active online users than many might think. There are many fascinating reports at Pewinternet.org which may help you convince your boss to think a bit more about the Internet and to invest some resources in that direction.

• More than half of the money that the Red Cross raised in the first 10 days was online.
• The Baton Rouge Area Foundation had to get a new online donation processing engine because the one they had couldn’t handle the huge volume of online donations.
• About half of the money AmeriCares has raised so far has come in online. They sent an e-mail out to 70,000 of their donors.

Unfortunately, the article says that the pace of giving is already starting to slow down. Much more is still needed.

You can read the full artilce here:

http://philanthropy.com/free/update/2005/09/2005090801.htm

I believe that the web can be a very powerful fundraising tool. Those organizations that acted quickly to communicate how their organization was involved in responding to this unprecedented tragedy and had robust tools and a plan in place to use the web effectively are having the greatest success with online fundraising efforts.

This article discusses how the web lets donors find specific needs and fill them. It discusses how hurricane relief is the latest example of a trend in person-to-person philanthropy and how sites like modestneeds.org and donorschoose.org are opening the Internet’s potential to change charitable giving. It also includes giving tips from the ePhilanthropy Foundation.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-09-11-web-charities_x.htm

This article discusses hurricane cyberscams.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2005-09-01-katrina-cyberscams_x.htm