According to Roger Burks and NTEN, our identity- and personality-less nonprofit blogs need less brochure speak and more authentic, engaging stories.

He offers these five element of a successful nonprofit blog:

1. A champion – maybe that’s you, acting as “a conduit between those who want to contribute their voices to the blog and those who want to use those voices for organizational content, such as marketing and social media.”

2. A vision – one that’s “easy to understand – and realistic to achieve.” Roger encapsulates this in the blog’s description, which clearly communicates what this blog is, who is behind it and who it is for. He uses the example of the Mercy Corps blog description: “A daily look into the work, thoughts and ideas of our team around the world.”

3. A sustainability strategy – a plan for providing and soliciting content in the quiet times.

4. Flexibility – to open up the project to other styles and voices than the brand traditionally uses.

5. Storytelling mentors – to build your organization’s non-communications staff into personal storytellers.

Solid advice! Thanks to Roger for sharing your powerful insight.

Looking for blogging support? We’re offering coaching sessions for blogging newbies with our one-on-one version of Blogging for People who Should – get in touch if you’re interested: cassie@collectivestrategy.ca