Why should your nonprofit have a blog?

I look at a lot of nonprofit websites, Facebook pages and other online communication mediums while working on messaging or developing a grant narrative for clients. About half of them have a blog. After reading them, I sometimes wonder if they truly understand their audience, or the purpose of the blog

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Business-related blogs today are not about posting a note about an up-coming event or a notice of a sale. There are too many short-form ways to communicate to use a blog for that reason.

Blogs today are a way to provide a way to keep customers or in the case of nonprofits, donors and supporters, interested in supporting your organization and recruit new supporters.

To do that you need to provide something that takes more than three seconds to read, and while there is an SEO (search engine optimization) element, good blogs are more than that.

    

Savvy for-profit businesses know that a good blog engages, educates and informs as well as selling something. The blog should integrate with another facet of the business.

For instance, a business selling safety equipment for homes might link to their blog from their product description page like this:

"Item Description: Home fire alarm. Do you know how long you have to escape a residential  fire?  Check out our blog(link here) to see how long you can safely stay in your house when a fire starts."

The blog post then goes into detail about how long you can safely stay in a burning room, why and how to escape and offers a link back to the product ordering page.

The blog post does two things. First it provides factual information that makes the purchase of the item they are selling seem imperative.  Second, it keeps the business name connected to the customer in a very personal way.

Nonprofit blogs usually don't seem to be written for the right reasons or the right audience.

I recently checked out a nonprofit blog for an organization that provides a type of monetary assistance for medical needs. The last few posts were all about how this or that legislation affected this organization, and it contained a lot of industry jargon and acronyms that only a health care-savvy insider would understand. Yet, on their SM page they were complaining that they were having trouble getting their message out. Other than the URL, the nonprofit name, mission and  program title wasn't mentioned in the blog.

The audience I would think they would be interested in is one that can use their help or support their mission, but they seemed to be writing to effect some sort of political change at best, or just complaining to the world in general at worst.

Perhaps a more useful approach would be to engage donors by explaining how their support could provide X dollars for Y medicines or medical devices.  Or, they could engage their potential beneficiaries by offering information on support groups that they work with to reduce medical costs, or show how much their help had increased access to care or equipment. Even better, they could have done the occasional in-depth feature post about a person they had helped.

The point is, there was no reason for someone to engage with them vs.some other nonprofit.

If I was a donor looking for background on them, I might worry that my contribution would be used to lobby for something, or that the organization was about to go under because of the legislative pitfalls they described. That's not a good message to send.

Good blogs bring good results. Think about what outcome you want your blog to have, and write it for the right audience. Don't assume that they know all about you. Offer them some reason to remember you, and to connect with you regularly.

 Don't be afraid to have some length to the posting if the topic warrants it. Most of the blog posts I write for clients are from 350 to 800 words.  If you'd like a free review of your blog, send me an email.  Let's make your blog a truly effective outreach medium. 

Making donors feel special as your organization grows.

Donor retention is and has always been a problem for nonprofits. Every major nonprofit advisory organization is advising that donor retention should be on every nonprofits list of top three things to do in 2014. Blackbaud's 2012 statistical giving report states that small nonprofits were far ahead of their large counterparts in that category, increasing their overall giving by 7.3% in 2012.

I believe that trend can be attributed to the fact that smaller organizations tend to have more of a personal relationship with donors. It's easier for their donors to connect with them, and vice-versa. They have missions that more directly impact their donors. It's easier for interested prospective donors to go to meetings or attend events to support a local charity than to go to a gala event clear across the country.

The trick seems to be in retaining that sense of small-town camaraderie as the organization grows. Online fundraising seems to be gaining ground, growing by 11% on 2012, but along with that, donors report that they feel more remote from the organization. The more the organization grows, the more likely it becomes that it will lose that personal interaction.

Many organizations maintain a social media presence, but is that really what donors want?  Expecting donors to "like" you or retweet you is not the same thing as interacting with them on a more personal level. Anyone can read a Facebook posting or a tweet, but they have to initiate the contact.

As far as it goes, macro-connecting at that level is useful, but it tends to fully engage only those people who are already closely connected to the organization as volunteers or staff. Donors say that expecting them to go to a Facebook page really isn't very personal.

The most common reason given for not giving repeat donations is that the donor didn't feel appreciated. The larger the organization gets, the harder it is to maintain that one-on-one relationship with donors.

One way to overcome that feeling of rejection is to keep donors in the loop with a blog or a print or e-newsletter targeted only to donors. Please don't equate that with an appeal letter. These forms of communication should convey a feeling of " You are special and we really appreciate you!". Your purpose should be about replicating that feeling of small town intimacy, not sticking your hand out in every post or newsletter.

To be useful, these communications need to offer more than just an instant replay of a social media posting. Those are nice, but should be expanded upon in blog or newsletter communications.

Perhaps the blog or newsletter could educate donors about exactly what you did with their money last month. Perhaps there was a particularly touching story that you can share only with donors, or if you deal with complex issues, you can offer educational content to further emphasize why continued support is needed.

For-profits understand that keeping customers and buyers engaged is an important part of staying profitable, and they use CRM, or Customer Relationship Management techniques to keep their customers engaged, i.e. to keep their business top-of-mind with their customers.

Donor retention is exactly the same theory. You want to stay connected, or at least be the first thing the donor thinks of when they think about your mission focus. That way, when the inevitable appeal for donations does go out, it won't have the feel of a panhandler on a street corner.

Far less expensive and certainly more personal than traditional media campaigns, targeted blogs and newsletters are a great tool to keep those donors you worked so hard to get, firmly in your corner.

©2014 Rebecca L. Baisch

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Need help designing or maintaining a donor connection campaign?  I can help you. For more information, drop me a line at granthelp@ida.net