just reid:

NonProfit Quarterly

the current edition:Nonprofit Social Psychology: The Ties that Bind Us.
(also an interesting article on the use of web logs for nonprofit orgs...jim)

"What's a Blog, and why should Nonprofits care?"

excerpt:Getting Your Nonprofit Up and Blogging

"Step One

Decide the purpose of your blog. Ask yourself these questions:

What role would updated content play in the scheme of your current Web site?
What projects or organizational objectives do you have that may be candidates for blogs?
What are the costs and benefits of establ ishing a blog? Which staff members have the time, desire and knowledge to make a blog effective? What challenges will the organization face in teaching staff to blog well or motivating staff to maintain blogs?
Is this blog public or private? In other words, with whom do you want to share information--staff, partners or organizations around the world?
Step Two

Choose a blog "client," an application that will allow you to create content and post it online. In choosing your blog client, consider your organization's technology capacity. If you don't maintain your own Web site, it may be easier to use a Web-based client. These applications are inexpensive and easy to use, but their features and flexibility are limited. Web-based blog clients include:

Blog-City, http://www.blog-city.com
Blogger, http://new.blogger.com
EasyJournal, http://www.easyjournal.com
Easyblog, http://www.easyblog.com
Typepad, https://www.typepad.com
If your organization has more technology capacity, and particularly if you maintain your own Web site, you may prefer to use full-featured software that will allow you to install a blog on your Web server and integrate the blog with your existing Web design. Popular blog software clients include:

Grey Matter, http://www.noahgrey.com/greysoft
Radio UserLand, http://radio.userland.com
Movable Type, http://www.movabletype.org
A third option is to implement a content management system for your Web site that includes blogs among other tools like e-mail, listservs and message boards. Two distinct, nonprofit-friendly variations on this theme include Your- Mission (http://www.yourmission.net) and Plone (http://plone.org).

Step Three

Get ready to write. An effective blog will require a certain amount of diligence and creative energy from you and your colleagues. While the purpose of the blog will dictate the focus of your writing, your perusal of blogs, Web sites, lists and other online news outlets will provide you with new, interesting sources to link to and will enhance your blog. Keep in mind that blogging is as much about sharing information as it is creating information. What you write should be useful and understandable to readers.

Step Four

Find your audience, and help your audience to find you. With the proliferation of blogs and other online content, you can't simply assume that "if you build it, they will come." Here are some easy ways to get the word out about your blog:

Give out your blog's URL in addition to or instead of your e-mail address.
Join weblog indices, directories and aggregator sites, such as Eatonweb Portal (http://portal.eaton web.com), BlogSearchEngine.com and NPO blogs.org.
Ask other bloggers to include you in their "blogroll," the list of blogs that they point to from their site. This typically is an informal, reciprocal relationship --if someone links to you, you also link back to them.
And an important way to get a feel for your audience is to employ a "comments" tool on your blog that allows readers to post messages commenting on your posts or on other comments. This can help to create an active community among your readers, which may encourage them to read your blog more frequently.

Take these tips as a warm-up. Talk with others who currently have or are considering starting blogs, and remember that there is no uniform method for implementing a blog at your nonprofit. According to Sisnett, "You have to give yourself time to tinker with a new tool."