Whether or not to start a blog is a big decision for a non-profit. (We just started one ourselves. You're reading it.) If you're going to do it, you need to determine what kind of a blog it's going to be and what its ultimate purpose is. Then you'll need to devote some resources to it.

In our case, we wanted a space where we could highlight some of the achievements of our partners (to help us with our mission of lifting up our partner groups) as well as post periodic information that would help both present and potential future partners.

A word of advice from us and then I'll post some links to other blogs that are helpful in this regard.

Our advice

If it's an official blog, try to keep the blog as a separate area within your main site. Normally when people talk of blogs, they are referring to setting up an outside account with a blog hosting service like Typepad or Blogger, but if you do that you are losing a lot of control (especially in terms of identity and branding). If you are contemplating a site redesign and whether or not to start a blog, you will want to strongly consider housing the blog under your own roof.

That said, there are valid reasons to use such a service (e.g. perhaps you want to keep a small wall of separation between your official site and your blog because the tone of each will be very different).

Make sure to devote the appropriate resources to it. You'll need to have a devoted team of bloggers and a clear mission. It will take time to develop content, and it will take time to grow your traffic. Make sure to have tools in place to measure your traffic indicators and search hits. (Awstats and Google Analytics are free; there are a number of commercial stats aggregators as well).

Make a plan and set a schedule. It is a good idea to schedule blog entries into the calendar. Use this scheduled post as a minimum and if you get inspired elsewhere in the week you can either begin composing and publish as scheduled, or if it is timely or you already have an item scheduled you can post immediately.

Other resources

Here are a few other resources that may be helpful on this topic. I've pulled out some short excerpts/summaries below but please click through to see the entire thing.

• Tech Soup: Should Your Nonprofit Have a Blog?
  
  At the end of the talk, someone asked, "If my nonprofit were to start using only one of these technologies, which one should we adopt?" Jacob's answer was instantaneous and stolid: "Start blogging." I agree. Blogging is the simplest, fastest way to open more lines of communication with the people who care about your nonprofit. What's more, it offers the people who care about your nonprofit more opportunities to introduce their friends and colleagues to the work that you do.
• Beth's Blog: What color is your nonprofit's blog?
  
  • Blue: Institutional Information Blog
    This is a blog that provides information about the organization's programs and services...
  • Green: Aggregate Content Blog
    These blogs distribute news related to the content of the organization...
  • Lime Green: Community Blog
    These are blogs communities or group blogging sites created by a nonprofit that lets their stakeholders blog on their site...
  • Bright Yellow: Specialize Content - Campaign, Event, or Program
    These blogs are focused around a specific event, program, or campaign...
  • Light Yellow: Personal Blog
    Though this approach is the gold standard for personal professional blogs, it can be adapted for organizations...
• Net Squared: Nonprofit Blogging Burning Questions and Answers
  
  1. How do we decide if our organization should have a blog?
     • What is the goal you want to achieve?
     • Who is your target audience?
     • What are the communication tools you could use to achieve that goal?
     • How often do you want to post on your blog, and when?
     • What are the topics you want your blog to cover?
     • What platform will you use? Who will set it up?
     • How much time, staff and money do you have to put into setting up your blog, writing your blog, answering comments, reading other blogs, and leaving comments on other blogs?
  2. How do you make the case to your Executive Director that your organization should have a blog?
  3. Should your organization's blog have editorial guidelines?
  4. How do you handle a blog with multiple voices?
  5. Who in the organization should blog?
  6. How do you encourage comments?
  7. How do you deal with issues of fear and control?
  8. How can you use a blog to fundraise and mobilize people to action?
  9. How do you increase traffic?
  10. What are the ethics of blogging?
  11. How do you reach out to other bloggers to write about your organization?
  12. With the number of blogs increasing each day, how do you compete?
• Heye-Tech: 5 6 secret ways to trick your colleagues into becoming content creators for your website.
  
  Shh, don't share the following with ANYONE! Keep it to yourself and trick your colleagues at work into becoming the content creators that you know they can be...

  1. Job description. ...Work with supervisors, HR, "C" level staff, etc. to get web site content into all of the appropriate job descriptions...
  2. Three ring binders. Look around for things and pieces of information that people have thought is important enough to keep in a written format like a three ring binder...
  3. Ease it in. Start with an intranet, instead of a public website.
  4. Competition. Pick a couple people that you know are ready to give content, then get that published on your site. Then go overboard in recognizing those staff within your org...
  5. Bribery. Bribe them with food and hold an in-person meeting. Schedule a meeting focused on a topic that you need content for on your site. Then invite the people that have knowledge on that topic to a meeting and serve some pizza, ice cream or something. Get them talking and have someone take notes...
  6. Steal it. Ask your colleagues a question in an email and dont tell them you plan to reuse it on the web. Just ask a question. Take their reply and rework it as content. Then send it back to them with this quote, "WOW, I was so impressed with your answer that I would love to have this content on the org web site..."