In a brilliant, new article on Nonprofits and Weblogs appearing recently in Nonprofit Online News, Michael Gilbert covers the gamut, from how long he’s been blogging (“longer than anyone else online except for Dave Winer…”), to the cost of publishing his own blog (“90% of the ongoing cost of publishing this blog is my own cost of staying informed and reflecting on what I learn…”), to what motivates him to blog (“it’s the sense of connection that keeps me motivated…”), to much, much more.
About nonprofit blogging specifically, Gilbert writes: “In my communication workshops, I still find that nearly every nonprofit organization is rather afraid of the idea of blogging. It’s threatening to them to have their staff blogging, it’s too much work to have their leaders blogging, and it seems irrelevant to have their stakeholders blogging. Obviously, I support all three of these blogging strategies and I think that together they represent a resurgence of a community based form of organizing, whether in support of social service or social change. But I think the vast majority of the sector isn’t there yet.”
A couple paragraphs down in the article, Gilbert adds: “There are a great many different possible models for nonprofit blogging. Right now, I think the highest payback for individual nonprofits is to use the blog model as either the main or the most important organizing paradigm for their web sites. But for some time now, I have been advocating that nonprofits work to release authentic voices in their organizations by supporting individual blogging, starting with the leadership. Authentic voices of that nature will open all sorts of possibilities for organizations who want to mobilize and engage people, whether donors or activists or volunteers. But the long term implications are a more network centric nonprofit sector, rather than the organization centric system we have now. It’s pretty threatening on a lot of levels.”
Nonprofit or not, if you’re looking for a few good reasons to begin blogging now — or to encourage others to enter the blogosphere — look no further than this article by Michael Gilbert. To read it in its entirety, click here.
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