NP Action - Showcase Groups: Using Blogs for Advocacy

To read more about Amnesty International's online advocacy click here.

Showcase Groups: Using Blogs for Advocacy

A Revisit to Blogs
Blogs can provide nonprofits with many benefits. Increasingly nonprofits use blogs for all types of advocacy. Blogs can involve staff and volunteers, coordinate efforts, educate, provide resources to constituents, gain media attention, and even reach prospective donors. As a public education and outreach tool, blogs can promote nonprofits' issues. On October 7, 2005 NPAction featured nonprofit blogs that continue to exist today. Since then the number of blogs throughout the nonprofit community has vastly increased. We have updated the article to provide more information on how this simple, cost-effective communication device can boost advocacy campaigns.

A December 2006 article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (subscription required) details theincrease of blogs within the nonprofit community. "For some in the nonprofit world, blogs are already a mainstream approach they use to communicate their message to employees, board members, and potential donors." An example of a blog used to post news items is the OMB Watch Advocacy blog which posts information and web links daily covering a wide topic of nonprofit issues. An example of a blog that allows comments and dialog on issues is Spark program, the blog of a nonprofit youth program in California.

An easy way to start your organization's blog is by using a web-based blog client. These services include:

Blog-City, http://www.blog-city.com
Blogger, http://new.blogger.com
EasyJournal, http://www.easyjournal.com
Typepad, https://www.typepad.com

The Nonprofit Blog exchange is a very useful blog where nonprofits can find a collection of links to other weblogs and add their own. This clearinghouse of nonprofit blogs can be a helpful resource for various types of sector news, advice from experienced advocates, and information on nonprofit technology.The following material is from the October 7, 2005 article discussing the evolution of their blogs as advocacy tools.

Ballot Initiative Strategy Center

The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC) brings together nationwide groups committed to strategic grassroots ballot initiative campaigns in order to strengthen progressive politics and policies. When Oliver Griswold began as communications director at BISC in the summer of 2005, the organization had a loosely organized communications strategy. A blogger in his free time, Griswold, thought starting a Ballot Blog would increase BISC's presence on the internet and reach out to new members.

BISC had traditionally educated members through newsletters and white papers, using a formal news-style on their website. Griswold felt the blog would allow the public to read the latest news in an informal way and allow them to comment on the issues. By developing a comment option on the blog, BISC maintains a closer relationship with its members and ignites discussion about pertinent topics. Griswold thought the blog could create a 'water cooler' atmosphere with readers in contrast to the relatively dry information on the rest of the website.

Griswold also spent time promoting the Ballot Blog. He sent out an introduction to their organizational listserv and contacted other progressive blogs to post links to it. He recommends that organizations invest time in cross listing their website with other organizations. This gets increased attention for the organization as well as the blog.

BISC created a blog advisory board made up of ten individuals who rotate as guest bloggers. They are academics, consultants, pollsters, and campaigners. This provides different perspectives to the blog entries. In addition the guest writers provide content that staff would not have time to generate, since BISC is a small organization. Griswold and staff will seek out others to comment on the topic when they want to ignite further discussion within a blog posting.

Griswold recommends that organizations investigate using blogs, especially groups that normally have a narrow audience for their issues. Starting a blog can reach a wider audience. Since blogs tend to be more informal than the rest of the website, it is easier to take a more conversational tone in talking about issues. Griswold suggests using nonprofessionals' terms for any technical jargon and provide creativity, humor, and sarcasm to what may normally be arcane or drab issues.

Amnesty International

With over 300,000 online advocates Amnesty International established three blogs the summer of 2005:

The blogs continue and promote the discussion of human rights among their members. Amnesty International is an organization devoted to the protection of human rights worldwide.

Milo Sybrant, Amnesty's online community organizer, described how useful the blogs have been to their readers. Traditionally, Amnesty and other nonprofits have used newsletters to reach out to their members. However, since newsletters are only updated weekly, biweekly, or monthly they are not up to date with current events and news. In contrast, most blogs are updated daily, and their timeliness makes them an effective method of reaching out to the public.

Sybrant feels blogs help the organization keep in touch with its user base. In order to achieve their campaign goals, Sybrant feels emails alone are not enough to stay in touch with their members. The blog allows Amnesty International to interact with members in a timely manner. Furthermore, the blogs have allowed them to participate in the larger blogosphere. They promoted their blog to other blogs, educated their members on how to blog about human rights issues and even encouraged others to start blogs. By encouraging their activists to blog about human rights on the Amnesty blogs, they hope to increase and contain conversations about the issue in a central accessible location. Sybrant says there has been a positive reaction from users and the blogs have triggered a lot of interest to their campaigns.

Because the blogs are fairly new to the organization, Sybrant and others have begun to focus on how much time staff should spend working on the blog. Many organizations feel starting a blog will increase workload. However, by differentiating what type of information goes on the blog as opposed to websites and newsletters, organizations can begin to allocate and organize their time wisely.

Sybrant has promoted the blogs through press releases, emails and the website. Because the blogs are only a few months old, Amnesty International wanted to make sure the blogs work correctly and staff is allocating enough time before they promote them too widely. Sybrant hopes to include comment sections once the organization ensures that the blogs will be increasingly and interestingly maintained. He recommends other organizations be cautious about incorporating their blogs with the organization's website.

A Blog to Come: Clean up Washington

Field director Gordon Clark, and internet organizer Jessica Kutch of Public Citizen's Congress Watch created Clean up Washington along with a corresponding blog, which focuses on corruption and ethics in Washington, D.C. and the influence of money over politics. They see this campaign as more grassroots oriented than past campaign finance reform efforts.

The blog is an interactive campaign-building device where activists will have the chance to comment and share effective forms of advocacy. The blog allows writers and commentators to have a personal, readable, and accessible voice.

Gordon hopes to develop online community advocacy strategies similar to what he has seen on The Daily Delay, where activists post reports after taking part in an advocacy action. Nationwide responses initiate other responses, and activists are encouraged by what they read others are doing. The blog will become one way Congress Watch can begin to experiment with different Internet tools, as well as way for them to attract new and different members and brand themselves.

Clark and Kutch are concerned about differentiating tones between their website and the blog. They also want to find a way to ensure that readers understand that statements on the blog represent those opinions of the blogger and may not represent the entire organization.

Editing is another concern of Public Citizen, since they normally have a rigorous editing process for their reports. An equally rigorous editing process for the blogs would affect their timeliness. Reader comments pose another editing concern. While Clark and Kutch hope the comments on the blog are advocacy oriented and focused on the campaign, there is always the worry of inappropriate comments. Like Sybrant, Clark and Kutch advise organizations to keep these factors in mind while developing and slowly releasing their blogs.

Clark and Kutch have multiple strategies for promoting the blog. After establishing a website separate from Public Citizen to house the blog, Clark and Kutch plan to begin to establish a presence on left leaning or progressive blogs, including the Daily Kos and have guest diaries on reports they have released. They are also researching blog ads.

Public Citizen: The Critical Mass Watchdog Blog

In the fall of 2004, while brainstorming different methods to distribute news, Public Citizen's press officer Erica Hartman and the staff in Washington D.C, developed The Critical Mass Watchdog Blog. It is part of their Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, which works to protect citizens and the environment from the dangers posed by nuclear power.

Initially focused to expose corporate and government wrongdoing, the blog has now expanded to discuss additional issues. Public Citizen promoted the new blog through their many listservs in an attempt to reach out to a broader audience. Hartman noted that reporters looking for more information have begun to call the organization about pieces written in the blog. Their bloggers try to insert a sense of humor in their writing, hoping to target a younger and broader audience. Since some of their issues are a bit "wonky" and do not always appeal broad audiences, Public Citizen bloggers write in a manner that anyone can find understandable and interesting.

Hartman advised other bloggers to be careful of what they link to. Many news websites archive older articles, causing links to change. Critical Mass bloggers make sure what they link to will stay put. As an alternative, Hartman also suggested summarizing information rather than just linking to another site.

Although some groups fear that blogging may cause more work, Hartman says that this has not happened to Public Citizen. Because Critical Mass bloggers often post entries about familiar information, blogging does not take up too much time. Hartman also noticed that the blog has also been effective for internal purposes, a record of day-to-day issues that they have worked on as well as a timeline of events.