30 Pros And Cons Of Starting A Blog For Your Nonprofit

Fotolia 1728667 XS 30 Pros And Cons Of Starting A Blog For Your Nonprofit

Starting a blog for your nonprofit is not something you should take lightly. Based on my conversations with nonprofits, I’ve found the following “pros and cons”:

The Pros Of Starting A Blog For Your Nonprofit

Blogs are much less expensive to host and manage than traditional websites – and most hosting companies feature “1-click” installation of WordPress.
WordPress is so incredibly flexible, that you can build an entire website on WordPress – especially if you add on a premium theme like Headway.
Updating content and functionality with WordPress requires almost no knowledge of code, so you’ll save money on IT.
This ease of maintenance adds to the sustainability of your organization.
Having a WordPress blog includes access thousands of free software tools (plugins and widgets).
These plugins and widgets are easy to activate and deactivate. This means that you can try out functionality on your site without wasting time and money on custom web development.
Instead of waiting for your IT intern to return your call, you’ll be empowered to communicate urgent news very fast with your blog.
You’ll empower your board members to talk about why they love your cause and what it means to them personally. Donors tend to trust organizations that exhibit this sort of honest transparency.
You will experience a spike in the number of visits and depth of engagement from your fans.
An increase in donations generally correlates with increased engagement.
A blog is usually a good stepping stone to developing a private online community.
Your blog will enable you to deepen relationships with your fans. They’ll find fresh, relevant content that is useful them – and have a place where they feel heard.
You can trash your marketing theory in exchange for real insight into why donors give you money.
Your blog will become a powerful way to attract new visitors – especially as the blog attracts more subscribers and commenters.
You can more effectively enable content for the sharing web with sites like Posterous and Facebook.
Your blog can be a tool to enhance valuable partnerships with other non-profits.
A blog can enhance SEO with fresh content and inbound links.
You’ll be able to refine your nonprofit’s story over time through regular blogging.
Asking staff to share their thoughts on the blog is a tangible way to enhancing retention.
A blog will help you refresh and refine your passion – which is the whole point anyhow. Right?
JUST ADDED: A blog uses RSS technology, which makes syndication of your content really simple.

The Cons Of Starting A Blog For Your Nonprofit

Updating versions, plugins and themes is extremely easy, but still requires someone to complete these tasks regularly.
Even though measuring engagement is relatively easy, you’ll need to have someone consistently measure the effectiveness of your blog posts.
You’ll need to make a commitment to regularly updated content on the blog. Even if you post only once a week, it’s still a task that will have to be completed – consistently.
Blogging requires focusing on specific goals – getting found in search, engaging with constituents – for the long term.
Even though there are plenty of great sources, blogging requires understanding and keeping up with best practices.
You have to constantly come up with creative ways of producing fresh, exciting content.
You’ll have to be willing to respond to and manage comments on the blog. As with content creation, responding to comments on a blog takes up staff time and resources.
There may be difficult questions that require transparency. Once you start a blog, you’ll notice that in addition connecting better with supporters, you’ll also find a few critics.
Blogging can means a steep learning curve. Managing a WordPress blog, and writing quality content may take time. Particularly if you have SEO goals.

What pros and cons can you share?

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http://twitter.com/andystitt829 Andy Stitt

All of the pros that you listed are the reasons why I think my non-profit organization would heavily benefit from having a blog. However, the biggest con that stands in our way is the amount of time and resources that it would take to maintain it. We are a staff of four, and the bulk of our time is spent doing fundraising and program administration. I would love to figure out how to fit this into our workflow or get help from volunteers where we can.

http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Andy – Thanks for the visit!

A couple of ways to build this into your workflow:

1. When staff are meeting with constituents or clients, use video to
capture 60 second bites.
2. Video on an iPhone or Flip is easy to create.
3. Re-purpose existing content in the form of short blog posts.
4. Have each staff member write two posts a month, which will create a
total of 2 posts per week.
5. Answer your most common FAQs in the form of blog posts.
6. What are the issues you guys fight for important? Again, less than 300
words.
7. Photos? Can you guys take pics during the course of your work?
8. Implement a blog calendar – having one makes creating content seem
less daunting.

I'm sure you've thought of some of these.

http://twitter.com/chanellecarver Chanelle Carver

“8. Implement a blog calendar – having one makes creating content seem
less daunting” >> I run a startup social initiative and when we began recruiting volunteers to blog for us building a blog calendar was the one of the first things I did. There's just no way to keep track of everything without knowing who is supposed to post on any given day. Having a blog calendar not only helps you keep track of when someone is posting but, if the blogger is required to send drafts, the calendar will help them keep track of their own time. We had writers submit drafts at least two days before their scheduled post date so our Editor could look it over and make any simple corrections or send it back for the writer to revise. To make a long story short, creating a blog calendar is one of, if not THE best way to build it into your workflow.

Great post, John!
http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Chanelle – thanks! Do you set up accounts for each blogger? Or do you
copy/paste content into the blog?
http://twitter.com/chanellecarver Chanelle Carver

It depends on the skill of the writer. If they read blogs but have never written for one then we do copy/paste. With the help of a Volunteer Editor we developed a blogging manual for new recruits and also held a phone conference to go over it in more detail and answer questions. Once they're comfortable with everything – our unique style/format, the “right and wrong way to blog”, etc. – we invite them to be a contributor on our blog (we used Blogger so they needed to have a Gmail address or create one).

The only thing with this is that they must have some knowledge of blogger or willing to quickly learn how to edit in HTML and all that. For some of our writers that was just too much. All they wanted to do was write the content and let us do the rest which was totally fine by us. On the other hand, you could have them write the content but NOT publish. All the editor has to do is edit and publish.

I'd recommend recruiting an experienced blogger to volunteer as the editor. Makes your life and the experience of your volunteer writers much easier. And if you can find someone with knowledge of SEO even better!
http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Sounds like you've got some great strategies for dealing with blogging
teams. One service I offer my clients is custom video tutorials on using the
blogging software. These videos are of the clients actual blog and
demonstrates, step-by-step, how to publish posts, add tags, choose
categories, etc. The orgs are able to shorten the learning curve for new
bloggers and save valuable staff time teaching one-on-one.

http://www.themhs.wordpress.com/ jenni beattie

Great post. I would agree with all these comments the pros and the cons.

Andy I understand your time limitations as my client also has the same problems.
They manage to run the blog in about 3 hours per week and it is regularly updated.
You need to put time aside to do it and if you are already on Facebook and Twitter the integration is really helpful.

Agree an editorial calendar is a good idea and sharing the load with others is key. Always keep your 'content' hat on when you are at events, see an article – etc thinking ' is this something i can blog about'.

My client is in the mental health space and blogs in this area are only now taking off – as others come on board interactions/engagement will grow.

Good luck in your future ventures

Jenni Beattie

http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

One other thing is that you can write all your posts in one sitting and then schedule them for publication. This takes advantage of being in a writing groove and eliminates the inefficiencies of preparing to write (making time, opening laptop, making space, logging in, creating into a creative headset).

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http://www.ericliddell.org/ Gordon

Blogging does not take much time up. I run a personal blog and effectively dump interesting stuff that I find into it. At work we use a blogging tool to run our news section and this works very well. Its regularly updated and we can send in news via email for automatic insertion, but we prefer to engage through facebook and twitter, which for us seems to be more effective.

http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

Gordon – The other thing about using a blog for news is that folks looking
to syndicate, can do so very easily with RSS technology (I think I'll add
that one).

sue_anne

I think too many people get caught up on the word “blog” and what they think that means and the “Rules” that go along with blogging. It's going to be interesting to see how our little experiment goes and whether we can get the benefit of some of those “pros” without the drama of having a “blog”.

http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

We shall see!

alliesrosey

The major disadvantage of a blog is that blog audiences tend to expect more frequent updates than article based audiences. Since this i san audience expectation issue, it can be managed. If you website is useful to your audience and maintains a regular schedule of posts, you can train your audience to only expect a new post whenever your schedule dictates.

Web Design Kent

http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

One of my favorite bloggers posts less than once a week.

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http://www.southwestwashingtonzest.com/ Katlin Smith

Chanelle Carver's comment about setting up a blog calendar is spot on. Even though I am a solo blogger (on travel and recreation in SW Washington State), I could use a calendar like that to track the status of my research, photos, drafts and contacts with my post sources. Thank you!
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Bloomtools1

Nice list of Pros of blogging. Blog’s typically were just an easier way to have a diary and weren’t intended to make you popular or give you social status through the internet.

http://www.johnhaydon.com John Haydon

You got that right. In fact blogging used to be called “journalling”

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ebusinessmom

thanks for your list. blogging has its ups and downs. might be helpful and might not be for some