Beth Kanter interviews Michael Gilbert about nonprofit blogging. Worth a read.
Ed Batista picks up on the most provocative bit:
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.
For most of the folks I’ve worked with, “overwork” is more what’s driving blog-resistance than fear. And they are still skeptical about the network-centric communication and organization theories that underlie our empahsis on blogging.
In my experience, “overwork” is a generic reason used for anything that a person or organization has other reasons for not doing. Those other reasons can be sensible or not. They can be higher priorities, hidden fears and costs, a lack of understanding. But it’s hard to argue with being overworked, right?
As to the matter of fear of blogging. I am not saying that the fears are unfounded. I can say that every one of the nonprofits with whom I have discussed blogging over the last four years has at some point raised concern about dissident voices. But I’m guessing these may be larger organizations than the ones you work with, which might account for the pattern.
We do seem to agree that nonprofits are not yet ready for blogging as a strategic commitment, whatever the reasons offered.
I wonder if we are going to see the same pattern in nonprofit blogging as we saw in adoption of email strategies. The small organizations were too overwhelmed. The large organizations were two conservative. It was the medium sized organizations that innovated. Hard to say….
I agree… the strategic committment to blogging is slow to come. But I think it’s coming, thanks in large part to the tireless evangelism of folks like you.
Yeah, it’s true that overwork is an often-lame excuse. But it’s still true sometimes. Competing priorities. People don’t see WHY blogging is strategic yet. And they often lack the raw writing skills/passion. That’s often not why they were hired.
I’ve heard little fear of dissidents expressed in my travels with folks — some, but not a huge issue. But the groups I work with tend to be mid-sized at their biggest.
I agree that innvoation tends to happen in mid-sized groups because their large enough to have resources/capacity and small enough to be nimble.
An interesting read. Both the linked interview and the post/comments. Jon Stahl said “People don’t see WHY blogging is strategic yet.”. I think this is a good point. People are always too busy(overwork) to do things that they don’t see as worthwhile. Nonprofits have to be shown that blogs could be a valuable resource AND how they would function as such. People are always hearing “oh this and this would make your business so much better” etc. that they become cynical when it comes to how a new technology can actually help them in a practical sense.
About what Michael said about the fear of “dissident voices”. This is a big concern for nonprofits because their brand image is such a huge part of their marketing/identity that they are very wary of anything that could damage it. At least that is my impression.
I just started working for the American Cancer Society in creating a web strategy regarding blogs for their Relay for Life program. So yes I think big nonprofits are starting to look at blogs as more than just a passing phenomenon. I started on this project fairly recently so I havn’t gone much farther than trying to figure out what already exists in the blogoshpere and reading up on various commentary about social/business/nonprofit blogging. You can follow my progress at my blog: http://relayblogger.typepad.com/relayblogger/
Good to know others are interested in nonprofits and blogging too.
More non-profits should blog. It puts a human face on the organization, can act as a sort of daily status report, and allow members/supporters to feel as though they have a voice in the organization all of which can increase retention, donations, and memberships.
I think too many NPOs have taken a wait and see attitude.