I just stepped out of a workshop where I taught a room full of Habitat for Humanity folks about using social media tools.  One of the things I talked about was blogging.

For a nonprofit, a blog is an inexpensive way to communicate with lots of people and open up dialog with supporters.  It offers a quick way to provide timely and regularly updated information and to answer any questions your readers may have.

Here are some of the benefits of blogging:

• Blogging is a great way to get attention for your cause and share information about your organization and your mission. You can link your blog to lots of other sites on the web and you can share a link to your blog in emails you send to your regular supporters.
• Blogging can be a team sport: you can get lots of people involved (staff, Board, and volunteers can all participate) in writing material for your blog. This can be a tremendous help if you don’t like writing or don’t have lots of time to write.
• Blogging is easy to do and doesn’t require a technological genius to get started.
• Blogging allows you to not only share stories about your work, but post photos, video, and audio fairly easily. This gives your readers a multimedia experience with you! If your mission has an emotional edge to it (saving the environment for example), it gives supporters a place to voice their concerns and opinions.
• Best of all, blogging gives you a new tool for cultivating donors and supporters.

If you do a good job of posting about your activities in your blog, creating an Annual Report is a breeze.  You simply go back through your blog posts to gather information.