Nonprofit Awareness Through Websites

The most important thing an organization needs to have on the Internet is a website. People look at websites to learn more about organizations.

Whenever I learn about an organization through Twitter or blogs, I always check out their website to learn more about them. I always want to know what their mission is and where they are located. It is very important that organizations include their website address in their profiles on social media sites and blogs.

Nonprofits can increase awareness by having the following information on their websites:

• Mission
  
• Information About Programs, Events, and Campaigns
  
• Information About Topics Related to the Organization
  
• Press Releases / News Articles About Organization
• Contact Information
  

My Have Fun and Do Good List

Britt wrote an entry on her blog titled How to Find Your Way to Have Fun and Do Good. She asks for others to make their own list, so I made a list.

My Have Fun

• Play with social media
  
• Read blogs
• Update website content
  
• Code in HTML
  
• Internet research
• Learn about how different places use social media
  
• Writing
• Analyzing data
  
• Play games
  
• Solve puzzles
• Staying busy with different groups I am involved in
• Meet new people

My Do Good

• Being a leader
• Volunteering
  
• Sharing resources with others

My Have Fun, Do Good

• Writing a blog about topics I enjoy to research about and write (this blog, Emily's World)
• Volunteer my time to write a blog to share resources with others and connect nonprofit bloggers with each other (Nonprofit Blog Exchange)
• Analyze web analytics for both blogs
  
• Work on websites for large nonprofit organizations or associations (past jobs I had)
  
• Being a leader in organizations by planning events for young professionals in the DC area

How Breast Cancer Awareness Groups Use Facebook and Twitter

I read an article on montgomeryadvertiser.com titled
'Social' Support: Breast cancer groups use Facebook, Twitter to boost awareness.

Here are some interesting facts from the article:

• Breast cancer groups use social media to reach people who might not otherwise hear their message.
• Breast cancer groups have different objectives and different groups they try to reach.
• Volunteers for the American Cancer Society use social media to get the word out about events.
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure uses its Facebook page, which has more than 280,000 likes, to drive traffic to its website. People are coming to their website to learn more about the information they are posting.
• Twitter is also useful for posting information about events. Followers of a group can retweet messages for their followers to see.
  

After reading this article, I started thinking about nonprofits using Facebook and Twitter.

Here are my thoughts:

• Organizations can encourage their supporters to post information about upcoming events and campaigns on both Facebook and Twitter.
• Use Facebook and Twitter to post links from your organization's website. Link to new reports, studies, press releases, new resources, and any other new content on the website. Followers and people who like your organization do not check your organization's website daily. They can see your new content through links on Facebook and Twitter.
• Organizations reach new people through social media.

Bloglines and RSS Feeds

I just read an entry on BlogHer titled "Is RSS Dead? Bloglines to Close on October 1". I have been using Bloglines since 2005 and had two accounts.

The first account I created was to get the latest news from blogs about nonprofit technology, educational technology, and web design. For the past couple of years I had stopped checking that account because I was too busy checking my second account.

The second account was for The Nonprofit Blog Exchange. I used the public account to post the blogroll on The Nonprofit Blog Exchange blog for about 5 years.

I made the switch a few months ago to Google Reader. I had noticed that feeds were not loading correctly in Bloglines. I thought some blogs were not updated anymore. But it turned out it they were still updated, the updates loaded in Google Reader but not Bloglines. I moved The Nonprofit Blog Exchange account over to Google Reader.

After I made that switch I went into my other account and noticed Bloglines now required a word verification to sign in. I really did want to deal with that to read my rss feeds each time I logged in. I finally moved my other account over to Google Reader.

I would be lost without an rss feed reader! It helps me keep track of all the blogs that are part of the exchange. I use it to help me with writing roundups and it helps me figure out where I leave off reading each blog.

How to Use Delicious to Find and Share Disaster Relief Resources

In September 2005 I wrote an entry titled How to Tag Hurricane Katrina Bookmarks on del.icio.us.

Recently there have been more disasters and it is time to revisit this topic.

What is delicious?

Delicious is a great tool to share bookmarks with others. When you add a bookmark, you can add tags that are related to the link.

You can find shared bookmarks by using tags or by using the search engine.

What resources can you find and share on delicious?

• News articles about specific disasters
• What organizations are helping and how they are helping
• Information about volunteering
• Information about donating

Disaster Relief Related Tags

disaster AND relief
http://www.delicious.com/tag/disaster+relief

hurricane
http://www.delicious.com/tag/hurricane

earthquake
http://www.delicious.com/tag/earthquake

flood
http://www.delicious.com/tag/flood

oilspill
http://www.delicious.com/tag/oilspill


For specific disasters, you can use the following format:

http://www.delicious.com/tag/TYPEOFDISASTER+PLACE

Earthquake AND Haiti
http://www.delicious.com/tag/earthquake+haiti

Earthquake AND Chile
http://www.delicious.com/tag/earthquake+chile

Flood AND Pakistan
http://www.delicious.com/tag/flood+pakistan

Hurricane AND New Orleans
http://www.delicious.com/tag/hurricane+neworleans

Oil Spill AND Gulf Coast
http://www.delicious.com/tag/oilspill+gulfcoast

For hurricanes (or tropical storms) you can use the following formats-

http://www.delicious.com/tag/hurricane+NAME
http://www.delicious.com/tag/hurricaneNAME
http://www.delicious.com/tag/NAMEOFHURRICANE

Hurricane AND Katrina
http://www.delicious.com/tag/hurricane+katrina