Non-profit blogs: two perspectives

Non-profit blogs - two perspectives - ConnectingUp conference, May 2008 Emily Turner Philanthropy Australia Priscilla Brice-Weller ANTaR

Both have limited ICT staff & limited funding

Who we are – different organisations Sector-specific support Raising public awareness Member-driven Cause-driven Information dissemination Campaigning

Making existing information more accessible

Different purpose & approach STAGE 1: PLANNING Increasing public awareness Amplifying our existing voice Giving other people a voice Why should we have a blog? We should have a blog. RSS made simple, subscription-friendly ‘ Traditional’ blog (casual)

Same tools & workflow STAGE 1: PLANNING Multi-author, comment-friendly Dynamic addition to organisation-voiced website Both value open-source software, Wordpress : cheap, flexible, easy, multi-featured.

The Bloggers STAGE 2: DEPLOYING Both set out with minimal (achievable) goals & guidelines News feed, managed by webmaster Opinion pieces, guest bloggers invited

Finding an Audience STAGE 2: DEPLOYING Used to better serve existing constituents Used to seek new sympathisers Making use of social networks to alert new audiences Allowing existing audience to discover enhanced services

Results

Lots of visitors

Achieving & expanding initial aims

STAGE 3: ANALYSIS Not yet achieving initial aims Lots of subscribers, most by email Live since January 2007 Live since January 2008

What we’ve learnt STAGE 3: ANALYSIS EMILY PRISCILLA Success leads to internal organisational changes – more confidence in ICT Understanding that changes don’t happen overnight More work is required to assess how to engage both audiences and authors in the manner intended

Now, check out our blogs!