There’s discussion in the nonprofit world of whether blogs are a thing of the past. We like to respond by looking past the word “blog” and focusing instead on the purpose blogging serves and the technical architecture that defines blogs.
The average audience understands a blog to be composed of regularly published written content with a date, a uniting theme, and an email list. The tone is casual and conversational, rather like the musings of an individual. This version of a blog is losing readership.
But the purpose served by a blog is actually increasing in demand. Audiences want fresh content periodically. They expect the newest content to be listed first. They prefer content to be organized with tags. A unified voice reassures them that the information comes from a trustworthy entity–your nonprofit. And while visual and audio content are gaining in popularity, audiences prefer written content when searching for new information online.
Many nonprofits make use of templates and categories to create a page named “News” rather than “Blog”, but the architecture is essentially the same. Some nonprofits brand the concept, e.g. “The Town Cryer,” or narrow it to a certain type of content, e.g. “Press Releases”. Continuing to create this type of content on your nonprofit website provides a number of benefits.
The first benefit is that blog posts are great for search engine optimization (SEO). Over time, publishing lots of information connected to your mission will improve your search rankings, and in turn, increase traffic to your website.
The second benefit of structuring content as a blog in the technical sense is that your organization will legally own it. This means you are not beholden to technical platforms such as email platforms or social media which may or may not charge a fee or may or may not exist in the future. However, you can and should use social media, emails templates and other tech platforms to strategically drive traffic to your website.
Your website allows you the greatest control over how information is displayed and linked to calls-to-action like “Volunteer”, “Sign Up”, or “Donate”. Once you’ve made it a habit to publish information to your website, it becomes easier to take advantage of pricing or fads and switch between different social media or email platforms. You won’t have to migrate information since you’re not changing where it fundamentally lives: your website.
So why would a nonprofit consider abandoning its blog? It’s not unusual for an organization to be understaffed, which means there might not be a dedicated staff member to produce strong blog content. Struggling to find the time, plus a lack of ideas and uncertainty about what will resonate with your audience, can hinder progress.
Here are some questions to propel you towards nonprofit blog success
- What stories are happening in my community that relate to the nonprofit?
- What questions can we answer for the general public?
- What kind of conversation is taking place within the nonprofit?
With this guidance, you’re well on your way to creating amazing blog content because you’ve got your eyes and ears on what’s important: the community that you serve. Once you have the basic topic, take a moment to identify SEO keywords, which will help move your nonprofit’s website towards being seen by more people. SEO is about as important as the writing itself: no noise is made by the tree that falls with no one to hear it.
For more blog post ideas, keep reading!
Ask Your Volunteers
A great option is to ask your volunteers for their personal narratives. These narratives can be about their reasons for volunteering, their views on the community or the organization’s mission, or their views on the societal need that the organization is addressing. The best content will be light-hearted and serious, so it’s easier to understand the overall perspective of the organization, yet help promote a warm feeling of accomplishment when done reading the narrative. Most volunteers are honored to be asked to contribute their stories to the organizations where they volunteer. Not only does it help your volunteers feel more identified with the organization, but also helps your audience engage with the organization.
Ask Your Program Participants
Another great perspective to include on your blog is that of the people who benefit from the programs you offer. This can include how the programs have helped the participants materially, mentally, or emotionally. Program participants can also write about how the came across the organization, how they identify with it, or the relationships they’ve built within your nonprofit community.
Ask Your Supporters
Getting personal narratives from your supporters is another source of amazing blog content. This gives your supporters the opportunity to showcase their passion and tell their stories. They can talk about why they donate or why they’re activists. These stories are inspiring for other readers, can be shared on social media or with friends and family, and can have the effect of increasing your supporter base.
Look at Current Events
When planning blog posts, look to current events. Break it down at each sphere of influence:
- What’s currently going on in the world?
- What’s currently going on in the country?
- What’s currently going on in the state?
- What’s currently going on in the community?
You can start broadly (globally) and address how issues affect your community. Alternatively, you can select what’s happening in your community and connect it to bigger issues affecting larger regions and populations.
Read the Blogs of Other Nonprofits
If you’re struggling to find ideas, look to your peers. Visit the websites of your favorite nonprofits and see what topics they’ve written about in the past. Or check out our list of well-run nonprofit blogs by organizations tackling a variety of issues:
- Alameda County Community Food Bank – “Blog”
- Defenders of Wildlife – “Without End”
- Human Rights Watch – “News”
- The Marshall Project – “News”
- National Resource Defense Council – “Stories”
- National Wildlife Federation – “Blog”
- Ocean Conservancy – “Ocean Currents”
- One Help United – “Blog”
- Pancreatic Cancer Action Network – “News”
- PETA – “Blog”
- Points of Light – “Daily Points of Light”
- Polaris Project – “Blog”
- Power to Decide – “Articles”
- Together We Rise – “Blog”
- Union of Concerned Scientists – “Take Action”
- Wildlife SOS – “Articles”
Create a Blog Series
Some posts need more than 2,000 words to do their topic justice. When this happens, create a blog series rather than a single post. You’ll be able to be more thorough within each post and create truly worthwhile content while still maintaining reader interest. A series naturally breaks up information into more manageable chunks that readers are more likely to engage with, while still connecting all information together for those readers who want more to digest more information in one sitting. Two clear signs that your blog post would be better as a series? Worrying that you’ve oversimplified information or asking yourself whether your explanation of the topic is clear enough.
Interact With Your Audience
When people comment on your blog, you should respond. Many times commentators ask questions that are hard to answer in a comment box: use their comments as inspiration for future blogs. You might even ask the public to send you inquiries and use them to create a whole blog series with the theme “questions from the audience.”
Use Your Website’s Internal Search Function and Google Analytics
Most nonprofits offer several different programs for their community. If you have a larger website, your audience might be using its internal search function to find the information they seek. You can utilize Google Analytics to see the terms being searched. Often, there will be trends and you’ll be able to discover inspiration for new blog posts. If your nonprofit is in the nascent stages and you haven’t set up Google Analytics yet, you can still use Google Search Console to learn what queries list or link to your website when people use Google search.
If you’ve got a vague idea for your next blog, start googling relevant phrases and keywords. The results pages will likely include a “Google Suggest” section that shows you related search terms used by other people. By knowing what people are searching for in relation to your topic, you’ll be able to identify what points you should address in your post and maybe even find enough material for additional blog content.
Consider Other Media for Blog Content Ideas
- Share relevant accounts you follow on social media and explain why you like each
- Discuss a book related to your mission and highlight your key takeaways
- Show how donation dollars are being spent in your community through photos, video, stories, or infographs
- Narrate the process from donation to delivery in the field and illustrate with photos
- Write up a budget of what your nonprofit can purchase with different donation amounts and explain the impact each has for folks in your community
- Describe how you decide where to spend donation dollars
- Share your future fundraising goals
You can also go offline to get blog ideas. Consider how your topic is treated in magazines, movies, TV shows, theater, or music. What about visual media, such as art? Going visual with your blog is a great way to create amazing content.
These tips for creating amazing blog content are meant to be straightforward, but also be extremely powerful. We hope more than one of the ideas listed here has sparked your imagination. But if you’re still struggling to create strong blog content, we invite you to work with our content specialists to create a list of potential topics that are ideal for your nonprofit and/or develop your existing ideas into published pieces that can help you increase your nonprofit’s visibility.
