Judi Sohn, Director of Operations and Communications, for the Colorectal Cancer Coalition.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Judi Sohn for Blogher and have finally published it. I really enjoy reading her personal blog, A View from Home and if you work with nonprofits and technology - you'll find it very valuable.
She made some really important observations about using a blog for professional development that resonated with me.
Like me she is a self-taught techie, "Everything I know now I taught myself by experimenting and learning from others online."
She uses her personal blog, A View From Home, to help her keep informed of technology. "I’m a geek wannabe. I understand this stuff enough to be dangerously chatty at cocktail parties but I’m no programmer. I use my blog to help work things out for myself. If I have a “eureka” moment about something, I’ll blog it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to remember when something happened or what the circumstances were that led me to a given point, and I’ll search my own blog to get that reference. It’s always fun when I’m Googling for something and my own site pops up in the results."
Her advice for those that work for nonprofits and do not blog anonymously.
"Before I hit the “publish” button on any post, I always ask myself, 'if the New York Times linked to this would I be okay? Is this something I would be comfortable posting on a bulletin board?' Since I’m the type of person who likes expressing her opinion, the answer is usually “yes.”
Her personal blog drives traffic to her organization's web site.
"I will sometimes use my blog to help drive visitors to C3 in the first place since my site is more established and gets better search engine traffic. C3’s referrer logs show that this tactic is often successful."
Judi recommends the following nonprofit technology blogs:
Emily's World
Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology
Studio 501c
Here are a few nonprofit technology posts from Judi's blog
Nonprofit blogging: keep your eyes on the road
9Charities
Nonprofit technology: The next frontier
Logic Puzzles and Democracy
Photo Credit Used with Permission from Flickr User c3colorectal
The second thing she did after hiring an attorney to get the
organization's tax-exempt status was to hire a well-known cancer
blogger for her organization. "My only requirement to her was not to
let more than 3 days go by without an entry. Some folks in the
organization looked at me like I was nuts, but they trusted me and it
was the best thing we could have done. Our website is a top search
result for many keywords, all originating from Kate’s blog entries.
Kate is also now our Director of Research Communication. She has an
incredible ability to take the most complex science and turn it around
into language anyone can understand. It’s a lot harder than it looks."
The organization also has an Advocacy blog.
"We need to draw attention to colon cancer. This only happens through
patients and their famliies. So we are working hard to connect with as
many people who are affected by colorectal cancer as we can. A blog
can do this."