Nonprofit Blog Carnival Roundup: How to Create a Juicy Nonprofit Blog

A big thanks to everyone who contributed a post to this month's Nonprofit Blog Carnival!  Below is a roundup of folks' answers to this month's topic, How to Create a Juicy Nonprofit Blog:

• In her post, Creating a Juicy Blog for Nonprofits, Marion Conway suggests that your blog posts be about the overlapped area of what you know, and what readers want.  She also has seven more tips you can check out.

• In her post, Nonprofit blogs: why this one works, Lisbeth of Nonprofit Execs on the Edge points to 2 keys to a juicy blog: a focus on storytelling and blog posts that aren't staff-generated.

• Jake of Grant Writing Confidential also emphasizes the importance of storytelling, among other tips, in his post, How to Write a "Juicy" Nonprofit Blog - or a Blog of Any Kind.

• Sandy Rees of Get Fully Funded Blog posted 12 ideas to get you thinking about blog content including: report back from events, invite guest bloggers to post, and ask your readers questions.

• Nonprofit 2.0 also has a list of post topics in their post 10 Blog Content Ideas for Nonprofit Organizations which includes, "interview experts, volunteers, donors and board members."

• Sandra Sims of Cause Blogger says to have a juicy blog you need to have an attitude of gratitude.

• Allison Jones shared her presentation on Five Common Challenges in Blogging and How to Overcome Them where she highlights five blogging challenges and offers some tips for how to overcome them like read and engage with other blogs in your field, and start by writing short posts.

• In their post, Your Nonprofit Doesn't Need a Blog, Beaconfire Consulting offers seven questions to ask yourself before you start blogging to make sure it is the right tool for your organization like, "Can you update often?"

• Finally, Kevin Jones of Hannah's Socks wrote me a note about why he thinks their organization's blog is juicy:

1. "It's not about us. It's about our supporters. I've never seen another org consistently recognize supporters in a blog like we do. 
2. Include a photo in the post if at all possible. Pictures have tenfold the value of words. 
3. Finish the post with a call-to-action when appropriate. Leverage the inspiring acts to try to create more good acts. This balance between 1 and 3 -- deflecting praise but also driving your org's strategy -- simply works. 
4. This system feeds back in on itself -- people who see praise become repeat supporters because they've been thanked publicly and been given attention they didn't expect. 
5. Leverage Facebook plug-ins so you don't have to maintain a separate login system for people to "Like" or comment on your posts."

The Nonprofit Blog Carnival is coordinated by the wonderful Joanne Fritz of About.com and hosted by different bloggers each month. Kivi Leroux Miller will be your host in August with the theme, Creative Ideas You Can Make Your Own.  If you’d like to be notified about future Nonprofit Blog Carnival submission deadlines, themes, etc., email Joanne Fritz with"Carnival Mailing List" as your subject line to get on the mailing list.


Flickr photo credit: Juicy! by sunshinecity.