VolunteerSpot named it’s top 29 nonprofit bloggers to follow on Twitter this week and guess who made the list?  You’ll find me in the #8 spot!  Woohoo!  I’m so flattered that folks find my blog ramblings helpful and worthwhile.  Check out the whole list at http://ow.ly/vlqe.

And if you’re not following me on Twitter, you can find me at www.Twitter.com/SandyRees.  I post inspiration, information, and links to resources, similar to what you’ll find here on my blog, but slightly different.  After all, on Twitter, it’s only 140 characters long!

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.

In my “Fundraising in the Blogosphere” session last week, I encouraged everyone to read other blogs in order to become a good blogger.  Here are some resources I ran across this week in the blogs I follow:

The Wild Apricot blog has 12 Great Ways to Share Your Non-Profit’s Knowledge Online

The Fundraising Coach has a Free Twitter Success Podcast

Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog has What Mal Warwick has to say about the downturn

Change.org blog has Web 2.0 icons you can use

Giftworks blog has Most Donors Plan to Maintain Giving in 2009

The Naked Idea has Lessons Learned in Kindergarten

ImpactMax has a Free Tool of the Week: Tutorials on Social Media Tools

There are lots of other blogs I follow.  I’ll be sharing more of them soon!

On March 31, I presented my first session at the AFP Conference in New Orleans.  I shared what I know about fundraising with blogs to a hundred or so new friends.  Here are some highlights from the presentation:

Nonprofits can use a blog to communicate, educate and separate (people from their money).

There are 3 simple steps to starting a blog:  1. Choose a platform (Typepad or WordPress).  2. Create a plan for promoting your blog. 3. Make a commitment to keep it going.

Don’t get overwhelmed at the thought of writing 3 or 4 blog posts each week.  Keep your blog posts short (250 words) and make them interesting to your donors.  Get help with writing if you need it (volunteer, intern, guest blogger, or virtual assistant).

Repurpose information for your blog.  Use stories from old newsletters.  Use information from email blasts.  Summarize press releases.

Read other nonprofit blogs.  Check out www.nonprofitblogexchange.blogpsot.com to find your favorites.

The best person to write the blog is the person who is most excited about it.

Want more?  Download the PDF of my presntation.

Got a question about fundraising with a blog?  Click on the comment link and post it so I can help.