Four Things A Blog Can Do For Your Nonprofit
What if I told you that starting a blog for your nonprofit could have a real effect on your organization and its bottom line?
It’s easy to dismiss blogs as inessential niceties. “What’s the point of writing blog posts that no one will read when I have an auction in a month and three grant requests due the month after that?”
Excellent question!
Here are four things a blog can do for your nonprofit.
Blogging Helps You Connect With Your Donors.
At its best, blogging is storytelling. Tell the story of your receptionist who went above and beyond. Tell the story of your formerly homeless client who earned a Masters. Tell the story of the cast who came together to make this year’s opera so memorable. These kinds of stories are what people remember when the annual giving letter arrives.
Blogging Can Further Your Mission.
Blogging isn’t just about donor outreach. A blog can actually help you do your job better. Do you provide financial counseling to low-income families? Blogging about that, and providing how-to guides in plain English blog posts can help you better serve your community.
Blogging Gets You Search Traffic.
Going with that example of the financial counseling nonprofit, let’s say you help people with bad credit, and you have a page on your website about that service. But you probably don’t have a page called “How do I erase my credit history?” You don’t because you know that’s impossible. And yet it’s a popular query on Google. You should make that phrase a title of a blog post. And then answer the question. You can explain that it’s impossible, but also explain the options and how consumers can benefit from your services.
Blogging Can Get You Noticed.
They are making Hollywood movies based on Internet comments. I’m serious. What you write on the Internet can go big. A heartbreaking story, a hilarious video, insight into the biggest issue facing your community. These are the kinds of posts that get shared all over the Internet and can send a fire hose of traffic to your site. You can’t plan for what will really connect and get shared. But if you want to get noticed in a big way, writing blog posts and building your audience over time will help make it that much more likely that when you do have something amazing to post, you will have an audience standing by to share it with the world.
There’s a lot more that blogging and social media can do for your nonprofit, but hopefully that was enough of a taste to convince you to seriously think about creating a blog.
Next week: Starting Your Blog!
Cross-posted from SalsaLabs.com
