Subject: Charity blogs

The Greenpeace Making Waves blog is exemplary!

We write a blog at YouthNet. We aim to keep it personal, as oppose to just being about marketing a brand. We try to cover different issues such as web stuff, how young people are portrayed in the media, volunteering, amongst other things.

These are interesting - quite different from each other. I like the mix of video and informative text on Making Waves and the approachable chats on YouthNet. Would be interested to know how much traffic and comments you are both getting?

I also recently found child's i foundation which is documenting the setting up and growth of their new charity.

I love Mara Triangle's blog (apologies to anyone reading this who's heard me say this before - as I am always telling people about it!) - and the way this organisation uses a wide range of social media to engage with supporters and raise funds.

Dogs Trust also have a blog which is worth a look.  Like Mara Triangle, they integrate this well with other social media - including microblogging on Twitter, videos on YouTube and a presence on Facebook - and have a very natural voice.

I have started writing a blog about being a child sponsor for the charity Project Mala. I hope it will prove useful for the charity by encouraging other people to become sponsors. Although I have several years experience in the non-profit sector in a range of roles and organisations, blogging is something new for me; I am finding it rather difficult to learn (i) the technical points you seem to need to know to blog and (ii) whether charities find blogs can be effective. I wonder whether my efforts are in vain so I was grateful to find the above and interested to read the comments and suggestions ~ many thanks.

Thanks for your comment HelenPH. Really glad these posts were of use to you.

I had a quick look at your blog which works well as an insight into the position of a sponsor. Are project Mala following your blog or promoting it to other sponsors / potential sponsors? I spotted that they mentioned it on their twitter account but are not big Twitter users.

Thanks very much for your message and for looking at my Project Mala blog. I believe Project Mala are following my blog. It was mentioned in a mail-out they sent to sponsors and I was told it would be noted on the home-page of the Project Mala web-site though this hasn't happened yet ... they are a small charity who achieve lots with very few staff/volunteers.

Thank you too for the feedback about it being mentioned on Twitter. I have explained with apologies to Project Mala that I do not use Twitter so the Chairman said he or another trustee would 'tweet' about it.

I have let the Project Mala Chairman know about your organisation as I thought he may find it helpful some time. I have joined your Facebook page so I will be able to continue to get tips and ideas. Thanks again.     

Hi HelenPH,

glad all was helpful. We're about to put together a guide about getting started on Twitter which you might find helpful. It's a great way to communicate your message, attract new people to read your blog, listen to what other people are saying and to have conversations with them. With a blog you're often dependent on people remembering to come back to see if you've written anything new. With Twitter you can tell the people who are following you that you've added something new.

Twitter doesn't have to take up lots of your time and is easy to get on with. Why not give it a go? I'll let you know when our new guide is up.

Madeleine

Thanks very much Madeline. I'm pleased to hear about the 'Getting Started on Twitter Guide'...that sounds very useful for someone like me. Your guide may tempt me to try it...my reasons for not using Twitter so far have included wariness about the amount of time it could take, privacy issues and concerns about the reputation Twitter has because of how some people use it. But I'm interested to find out more about it. In the meantime, thanks again, Helen    

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I really liked the Dogs Trust blog too. Sadly the Mara Triangle blog seems to have gone. Are there any others people like or that charities have found particularly effective?

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