Notes for Berkman Conversation

I'm trying to get some links assembled in one place for the Berkman Thursday evening bloggers meetings where we will discuss nonprofit blogging.   

What does the nonprofit blogosphere look like?

It’s a fairly small niche, but a vibrant and rich one -- hopefully growing ...!

There is no official organized nonprofit blog census,  npo blogroll or a bridge blog like Global s. (Closest thing right now is the attention stream created for the nptech tag community - although the focus is on one slice of the nonprofit sector)  There are a few adhoc decentralized nooks and crannies in the blogosphere where you can find listings of nonprofit blogs or aggregated content of interest to nonprofits. 

-Omidyar Thread on Nonprofit Blogging 

-Npoblogs (aggregated content) created by Carnet Williams, with LotusMedia taking it forward

-Bloglines (nptech account)

-Blogrolls or linkblogs of nonprofit bloggers (Deborah Finn's Blogroll or Marnie Webb's sidebar)

-Rebecca MacKinnon’s Blogging for a Cause Post

-NTEN/NTC Conference Bloggers

Many nonprofit bloggers feel like Robert Moffit, blogger with the American Lung Assocation of Minnesota, who said as a nonprofit blogger, he felt like an Ivory Billed Woodpecker, a rare species.

Podcasting by nonprofits is also still in the embryonic stages with the exception of Andy Carvin.   Examples are few:  ItConversations, Gregory Heller’s experiment and examples in Brian Russell from Audio Activism's recent presentation

What are some examples of nonprofit blogging?

* Many non-profit blogs are written by nonprofit techies and political activists  and a lot of these are individual's s – purposes may include  “professional development”  and networking/marketing.   See side links for different examples of individual and organizational nonprofit and nonprofit technology blogs or click on the "Bloggerviews" for interviews with a few).

* There are more and more nonprofit organizational blogs entering the blogosphere, although these probably only represent a very small percentage of nonprofits.  There is still a long ways to go before nonprofit blogging becomes common. 

Some examples:

1.  Authenticity and Demystifying the Artistic Process

Walker Art Center
New Media Blog
Interview with New Media Designer
Community Programs Blog
Interview with community program

Blog on the Boards: 
Where an audience member writes the review of performance and it is posted on the blog

2. An internal focus for organizations to capture knowledge and support collaboration and go external ...

American Cancer Society – Fi Space
Malden Cybercafe

A post by Marnie Webb from ComputMentor on internal uses of blogs by npos

3. A in the emerging new medium to get their message out there

American Lung Association of Minnesota
Some comments by Bob Moffit about their blogging experience

4. Facilitating people who receive organization’s services to blog and connect

March of Dimes
Nancy White reflects on the project in response to postings by me and Lisa from Rherotic of Me

5. Fundraising:

Walk the World Event

6. A blog to discuss a report/book

Power to the Edges:  Trends and Opportunities in Online Civic Engagement

Smart Communities (Shared authorship)

6.  Executive Director Blogs

Environmental Organizations

Artistic Director Blog (Inactive)

What are the barriers?

From Micheal Gilbert interview:  Fear

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.

From Marnie Webb interview:  Loss of Control & Time

The concern is: How do we make sure that people are staying on message?  What if they say something we don't want them to say?  Aren't ready for them to say? With that in mind, I speculate that giving up control is a big barrier.  Time is also a barrier.

 

From Ed Batista:   Fear 

Sustainability/capacity -- some start blogs, but haven't given thought to how to sustain

There are a number of nonprofit tech providers (NTAPS) who are providing training and awareness raising of the value of blogging (and other emerging technology) for nonprofits.  Here's  a sampling of articles:

Marnie Webb, CompuMentor Ready to Start Blogging?

Marnie Webb, CompuMentor RSS for Nonprofits

Marnie Webb, CompuMentor So you wanna start a blog?

Marnie Webb, CompuMentor What's in NPO Digital Media Kit?

Nonprofit Quarterly/N-TEN Collaboration: What's a blog and why should nonprofits care?

OneNorthWest: Bloglines and Delicious: Two Tools for Uncluttering Your In-Box

Ruby Sinreich, Why nonprofits should use tags?

Ruby Sinereich, Nonprofit Blogging and Podcasting Presentation

Peter Campbell:  Non-profits blogs are better than web sites?

Weblog Strategies for Nonprofits by Radio Free Blogistan

Jenn Thompson, Blogging as an Effective Fundraising Strategy

Nonprofits and RSS
Kris Bell (will be offered by Npower Webinar)

Issue Dynamics, Inc - Presentations on Blogging for Organizations

What are some examples of drama in the nptech blogspace?

The most exciting thing for me right now is the use of tags in nonprofit techie land - the nptech tag community.  I set up an H20 list with the snippits of the history.

Cross-blog talk can lead to better understanding of topic with colleagues or ad-hoc collaborations

For example, whining about something lead to a collaborative writing space set up by Marnie Webb.  The article on consultantcommons is still a work in progress, but got popular link status on delicious!

Cross-blog talk in response to Michael Gilbert's article on online publishing workflow lead to some nonprofit techies sharing their blogging workflows and their tools lists here and here.   Gilbert commented. More people mapped their work flow.    

And, Ed Batista's thread "“Is the term blog obsolete?”  had quite a lot of us writing, reflecting, and ranting 

Hmm .. I just saw that Brian is bringing his video camera, I better go take a shower....

Comments

[andy carvin]

Good stuff, Beth - and thanks for the plug! I'll try to attend tonight, but I'm getting ready to leave for Ghana and I'm horribly swamped. -andy

[Eric]

Hey Beth,

This is Eric from the Walker.

Just thought I should point out that you that wrongly credited me with the title "New Media Curator". A fine title to be sure but I'm just a "New Media Designer" we have not actually had any New Media Curators here since 2003. You read what our last curator had to say about that.

I appreciate the mention. You might also like to hear we got our first programming department to blog. Thats programming as in "events programs" not programming as in PERL.

[Greg]

This is an *awesome* review - and it reminded me to cover the Walker Art Center on my blog (what an oversight!)