A blog should serve to keep your current and potential supporters up to speed on the important things happening within your organization.

To accomplish this while also enhancing the efforts of your nonprofit, there are some basic steps you can take.    

Your Nonprofit Blogging Checklist:

Keep it Short  

Depending on the context of the article, one to three paragraphs should be more than enough content to convey your message. Say only what is needed to get your point across, then stop.  Adopt a philosophy of quality over quantity.   

Make the Content About Them

Address content to “you” (your audience) instead of “we” or “I” (your nonprofit).  Incorporate Nonprofit Storytelling to really make an impact.    

Make it Relevant, Useful & Engaging: 

Think of your blog as a thank you gift for your supporters.  Make sure every topic you cover is useful, helpful, and enjoyable to your audience, otherwise don’t waste your time writing about it!  

As a general rule of thumb, if it benefits your supporters, it’s ultimately going to benefit your organization.  

Use Content Creation Tips  

If you’re struggling for inspiration, check out our article on how to create a tasty blog post or find inspiration from other nonprofit bloggers. 

A prime example of a nonprofit with a killer blog is Primitive Pursuits:  

Blog Consistently & Frequently

Try publishing one blog article per week to start.  The more you have going on at your organization, the more information you should be putting out there! Don’t simply write to fill in the gaps – have something important to say.

Link to Relevant Inside Sources

Hyperlink some keywords within your article to other relevant blogs or related pages on your website.  For example, a good link to share for this blog would be another article about nonprofit blogging. 

Link to Relevant Outside Sources  

Including links to articles from reputable sources outside of your website helps establish authority and trust while providing even more information to your supporters.

Share your Content

Do you have a following on Facebook, Twitter, or other Social Media channels?  Pay attention to what your followers like and share on these platforms and what times they’re most engaged with your posts, so you can effectively share future content with them.  To save on time, try using an automated social publishing tool, like HootSuite.

Utilize Visuals 

Articles with images are estimated to get 94% more total views.  You can find free high quality stock photos here.  You can also easily customize images by using a free image editor like picmonkey or Canva.     

Add a Call to Action 

A call to action or CTA should be added to the end of each one of your blog articles.  This gives your readers an actionable step once they’re done reading.  For instance, you can encourage readers to subscribe to your blog and provide a link, so your articles are sent to their inbox (and you then collect their emails in the process!). You can also have a CTA that brings visitors to another page on your website, like your donation page!  

Now that you know how to blog, what are you going to blog about?