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Double Teaming Non-Profits Into Blogging

Michael Stein recently shared some of his thoughts on resistance to blogging in not-for-profit environments (source in comments section here):

I have met a lot of resistance when I encourage my not-for-profit clients to blog. I think one aspect of that resistance is that a relatively small number of people enjoy writing and do it easily. I think that "blogging evangelism" needs to include a component that demystifies writing as a skill and provides resources to make new bloggers feel competent about their writing.

I thinks Michael's right on here. He also has a lot of good information on non-profit stuff at his site. One post that caught my eye was a post here that addresses non-profit bloggers and creating content.

I also resonate with Michael's comment about the need for "blogging evangelism" within a non-profit organization. For example, even though 21Publish is deeply rooted in the core blogging platforms for Amnesty International US and Amnesty International Germany, significant ongoing evangelism is needed. Stefan recently posted a presentation he gave to a broader audience of Amnesty International webmasters here. This presentation is an example of the ongoing evangelism that is required to get the various Amnesty organizations blogging successfully.

So I encourage folks interested in the non-profit space to continue to double team on getting those non-profits to blog. That goes for you too, Future MBA Girl (a blogger for two years now making a move to go to a management consulting firm focusing on the non-profit sector). People with your background can add value to non-profit endeavors while also increasing the number of management consultant bloggers out there.

Church Blogging

Stefan has made the following post on his blog. Thought it would be worthwhile to share here:

The protestant Church of Northern Germany called Nordelbien has launched a Church Blogging Community based on 21Publish today. As said before I strongly believe that blogging communities and group blogging will become more and more important for non-profit-orgs. They are a perfect means to tie bloggers together and to enforce the message of the organization.

A very valuable source of information on church blogging is bloggingchurch. It is there where I have also found a link to a Church Blogging Policies  put together by Brian Bailey.

Those interested in a quick plug for church blogging may be interested in the following article by Pastor Ken Gosnell, entitled "4 Ways Blogging Can Change Your Church". Local Texans may also be interested in Pastor Terry Storch's blog - he recently won book deal to cover church blogging.

Field Use Of Blogs, Wikis, Etc. And The Importance Of Getting The Context Right

Dr. Biren Saraiya, MD has a good, detailed post on his experiences with using blogs, wikis, and other technologies over at the SAHRI blog (a non-profit). I love to see both frank positives and negatives about the use of different technologies by real practitioners. Technology companies cannot build products in vacuums, and his comments are great feedback.

What is very important about introducing technologies is getting the context right. Although I love to push technology (since I work for a blog vendor), the management consultant in me actually comes first - that means you have to try to understand a problem first before you can try to solve it. The work structure for SAHRI that that Dr. Saraiya conveyed to me about his organization is key to understanding what will work and what won't for his org:

--- our collaborators will be geographically disconnected
--- our collaborators will have busy (limited time for synchronous collaboration)
--- it will be long term committments (for any given project)
--- most of them will be technologically naive.

Another key to think about here, which is not discussed, is to figure out where to get leverage. It is often very hard to do this in non-profit environments. That said, a systematic shakedown or analysis of which levers create the biggest bang for the buck is worthwhile. Inexpensive communication and collaboration tools like blogs, wikis, and audio conferencing seemed to provide great benefit for very low entry-costs and minimal risk.

On Monday Will Run Q&A With A CIO Blogger

This coming Monday, I will run a Q&A with Will Weider, CIO of Affinity Health Systems, who blogs at The Candid CIO. Affinty Health System is network of 17 clinics, three hospitals, a long-term care facility and a health plan, so it's quite of mix of clinic, ambulatory, etc. environments which not all healthcare providers have. The first Q&A at The CIO Weblog will provide some insight as to why he blogs, what blogs he follows, and his perspective on employee blogging. If you are interested in healthcare and/or a case of CIO blogging, be sure to tune in next week. Thanks in advance to Will for making himself available!

Practicalities of Early Boards (Profits and Non-Profits)

This post has been reproduced from my other blog.

In the past few weeks, I've been asked by three folks about the legal and practical requirements of implementing a board in an early-phase organization. There is a lot of information around on the subject of corporate governance - probably the most notable resource that comes to mind for me is National Association of Corporate Directors. There are also books on the subject (e.g., Corporate Governance), but there can be a lot to wade through depending on how deep you want to go.

Here's my introductory $0.02 on the subject:

1. The board's primary purpose is to work on behalf of the ownership of the organization both a) to see that the organization achieves what it sets out to do and b) to provide a monitoring framework that ensures what management is doing is acceptable.
2. Boards then, can be viewed as the balance point between the shareholders (which own) and the management (which controls day-to-day operations).
3. Laws and articles of the organization may dictate the minimum requirements, but generally speaking, two key roles that are basically the minimum to organizations (profit and non-profit) are the chairperson and the secretary.
4. The chairperson is often referred to as the servant leader of the board - that is, the integrity of governance starts with the board, and the chairperson is basically a facilitator.
5. The secretary has responsibility for accurately documenting (guardian of) what the board has done.
6. In some situations, the secretary may also play a key role in helping the chairman put together board documents and doing behind-the-scenes work to facilitate the board meeting (so that it is a non-meeting in many cases). Tends to be more true in environments where more legal mechanics and knowledge of confidential organizational infrastructure is required.

Early-phase organizations may have some wiggle room (e.g., number of directors, amending by-laws) as to how governance works for numerous reasons, e.g., the management largely represents all of the shareholders.

Some key things that I would consider (in the case of wiggle room) include:

• Speed and convenience - larger boards may slow you down unless one of the following counterbalances the effects.
• Leverage - boards can be a way to get help at no to minimum cash cost. Here some key things to capitalize on are the board directors' networks, skills (e.g., legal or accounting), etc.
• Advice - although this is one I personally put the less stock in because one can get some of this without a board director relationship, it depends on the makeup of the management team and desire of the owners. Board directors can complement the management team's experiences.
• Independence - as the owners of the organization differ in total composition as compared to management, the need for board directors to be non-management and independent increases.

As a final closing thought, fund raising is huge timesink that affects both for-profit and non-profit organizations. Some non-profits have even segmented their board into operating and fund raising groups. The former group looks at current operations, controller activities, etc. The latter group is more forward-looking and gets involved with the strategic direction and milestones for the group. Fund raising is something that should not be forgotten because it is buried in the notes I've outlined above (probably could be categorized as a way to get leverage). Consideration should be given as to how the board makeup should look based on putting fund raising in the proper perspective.

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