Northern California Grantmakers

For some, blogging creates a sense of vulnerability. Here you are, for all to see, voicing your opinion or discussing the work your organization does.

Who’s to say that someone won’t take issue with what you say or what you do?

And that’s the thing about blogs. They’re designed to support dialogue via the comments section.

So what do you do when you get negative comments?

Do you avoid blogging all together?

Do you ignore the comments?

Creating a Dialogue…Even with Critics

I bring all this up because, of course, I have an example of an organization that isn’t shying away from the comments section on its blog.

Levi Strauss & CO.’s corporate blog LS&Co. Unzipped offers a “behind the seams” glimpse at what’s going on at Levi’s.

Their blog came across my radar because the Levi Strauss Foundation is, of course, an NCG member. And, as a coworker pointed out to me, the dialogue in the comments section is “refreshingly candid.”

You see, earlier this summer Levi’s devoted a blog post to discussing Braddock, PA.

“When you Google ‘Braddock, Pennsylvania,’ the search results feature terms like “distressed municipality,” “boarded-up storefronts,” and “high unemployment.”…

But there’s hope here–in the work of Mayor John Fetterman and others, who are leveraging new ideas and energy to spark economic revitalization…

As it takes some radical steps to reverse its decay, Braddock is the muse for Levi’s® new Ready to Work campaign, which will feature the people of Braddock doing real work in their town.

To contribute to the real change in Braddock, the Levi’s® brand is committed to funding the refurbishment of Braddock’s community center, a focal point of the town and their youth-based programming. Additionally, Levi’s® is supporting Braddock’s urban farm which supplies produce to local area residents at reduced costs.”

Seems like a pretty straightforward CSR campaign, right?

Even though the blog post focused on the community work Levi is doing in Braddock, many of comments challenged the company on other issues related to manufacturing, jobs, as well as their CSR work.

May Not Be Agreeable, But Necessary

It was William Churchill who said,

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”

So, you could say that criticism is healthy, it keeps us honest about evaluating how we are doing in our work (which reminds me, annual staff reflections are right around the corner).

Learning to listen to criticism and to engage in thoughtful dialogue with those who offer those critiques demonstrates that we’re earnest about doing the best job possible, about being the best individual possible…or being the best organization possible.

So it’s great to have an example of an organization not shying away from the negative and critical comments on their blog, but rather responding to them.

For example, here’s Levi’s responding to objections that their products are made outside of the U.S.:

“Editor’s note: A___, thanks for your comment. If you read my reply to M___ below, you know our response. As I told her, the competitive reality of this industry means that most apparel is produced outside the U.S. As you look in the marketplace for other blue jeans, I hope you’ll keep this in mind. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find competitively priced denim of Levi’s® brand quality produced in the States. Our company was founded in the U.S. and remains headquartered here. We’re quite proud of that fact and of the jobs we create — both directly and indirectly–throughout the country, and around the world.

And, here’s how they responded to someone calling saying that “fixing the community center is worthless”:

“Editor’s note: Thanks for your comment, C___. Our campaign is not just about fixing a community center in one small town. It’s about celebrating the pioneering spirit of workers everywhere. We focused on Braddock because it has such a compelling story of re-invention. We can’t fix the challenges the people of Braddock face, but the work underway there deserves attention – and that attention may, in some way, help its re-invention. We’re proud to partner with Mayor Fetterman and others toward that end.”

Of course the individuals who left those comments may not be fully satisfied with the responses they got, but the fact that Levi’s took the time to engage in conversation demonstrates that they are listening to feedback and that they will respond to pointed questions.

So bravo, Levi’s. For engaging in a candid and open dialogue with commentors on their blog.

Read LS&CO Unzipped’s Braddock, PA post online.

For this third post on blogs, I thought it would be helpful to hear from NCG member Give2Asia about their blogging experience.

Once again I think it’s time to see how these social media tools are actually used by grantmakers. And since I was really happy with last week’s Twitter interview blog post, I thought I’d again ask a member to give their perspective on a social media tool—this time on blogs and blogging.

To find a member I took to Twitter. It seems fitting to use a social media tool (Twitter) to connect with members about this blog series on Social Media & Grantmaking.

I sent out a Tweet to several NCG members in the hopes they would see my interview call and answer it. And…success! New NCG member Give2Asia sent me a message saying they were interested in participating in an interview about their blog, Give2Asia Forum.

Birger Stamperdahl is Give2Asia’s Director of Marketing & Partnerships. For over four years, he has been responsible for Give2Asia’s communications to donors and clients, media outreach, overall messaging, and online presence. His team is responsible for Give2Asia’s website and its social marketing activities.

Following is the interview I conducted via e-mail with Birger.

NCG: Birger, a big thank you for accepting my interview call over Twitter to discuss Give2Asia’s blog. First, how many people are on staff at Give2Asia? And who is responsible for creating blog content? Is there one blogger, or many?

My pleasure, and thank you for the opportunity to share what we’ve learned. In the United States, Give2Asia has 12 employees who work closely with donors and who are helping to get the word out about philanthropy for Asia. In Asia, in addition to three staff in China, we work with The Asia Foundation’s offices and with Give2Asia advisors in order to offer a comprehensive footprint across Asia and a presence in over 20 countries.

This presence allows us to build relationships with hundreds of local charitable groups in the region, which means we have a great deal information and many stories to tell about charitable projects and their results. Partly for this reason, while the marketing team is responsible for the blog, everyone at Give2Asia is involved in writing stories and contributing content.

NCG: When did Give2Asia start its blog? Why did you decide to start blogging and what topics do you cover on your blog?

We began the blog over two years ago originally to build more visibility for the stories we had to tell. Up until that point, all of our case studies and project examples lived on the website. It became clear that developing a blog site would give us more flexibility and would offer our audience one place to easily find a wide range of story content. So initially, we thought of it as a way to better share stories.

It quickly, however, became clear that blogging was a less formal, more flexible way to share all kinds of information. We did not need to write case studies told always in Give2Asia’s voice. We could have staff tell stories in their own voice, and even have partners and grantees as guest writers. Nowadays, we post all kinds of content on our blog, from travel diaries to partner event announcements to third-party videos we just happen to like.

NCG: As a grantmaker, what benefits, challenges or drawbacks have you found to blogging? Has anything unexpected or surprising come out of your blogging experience?

What has been surprising, and what took us a while to understand, is the “social media” part of blogging. As I mentioned, we were originally looking at the blog site as a place to post stories, and hopefully better distribute them to people who care about our content.

However, in the last year especially, we have discovered the benefits of sharing stories with other sites, reposting stories from sites that we like, and better integrating our blog with Twitter and Facebook. We aren’t just posting stories any more. We are trying to spark conversation, add our perspective to existing conversations, and promote partners and initiatives that align with our values and goals.

Something else has also happened along the way: Our voice (and voices) has developed and become more confident. This has been very important to the success of social media efforts. Because social media is less formal, people like Dien Yuen can step forward as individuals with stories told in their voice, but also representing Give2Asia. It’s very empowering when individuals in the organization can share perspectives and ideas publicly through social media. It shows that these are issues we all care about deeply and that they are topics we all think about. At the same time we can have more fun with Give2Asia’s “voice” and identity.

One last thing: Reporters today rely heavily on blogs to find perspectives, track trends, and identify issue experts. I believe our blog’s importance to overall media outreach will continue to increase in importance.

NCG: Any advice for a grantmaker who is considering starting up their own blog? Anything you would have done differently?

I think people’s social media strategies continue to evolve. Last month, TechSoup co-CEO Daniel Ben-Horin wrote a blog article called “Punching at Your Own Weight in Social Media.” He made some great observations about why and whether to get into social media.

For example, asking, “what do you want to do and how do you want to do it?” Have a clear idea of why you are starting a blog and what role you want it to play for your organization. “Punching at your own weight”, for me, means sharing what you know, talking about what you do, and not trying to be too profound all at once. See how the conversation changes and how it transforms your message.

NCG: What blogs, philanthropy or otherwise, do you regularly read?

In addition to NCG’s blog of course, I read Philanthropy blogs such as:

Tactical Philanthropy
Asian Philanthropy Forum
Asian American Giving
China Philanthropy
The Asia Foundation’s blog “In Asia”

And for blogs that follow social media in general: Mashable.com and AllTop.com

Another personal recommendation for people who can’t get enough of politics, check out this a great site for watching the many political polls that are reported by the media: fivethirtyeight.com

NCG: Thanks so much for sharing your perspective on blogging and for offering other grantmakers an example of how to use this social media tool.

Check out Give2Asia Forum at http://www.give2asiaforum.org/

The Social Media & Grantmaking blog post series will cover a wide range of topics. Check out the introduction post outlining the series.

To see all the posts in this series, simply type “social media series” into the search box located upper right of this web page.

Now that you know what a blog is, it’s time to talk about setting one up.

Technically Speaking

The good news is you don’t have to be some sort of html code-writing wizard to start your own blog. There are a plethora (and I don’t use that word lightly) of blog hosting sites out there.

In 2007, Mashable listed 40+ Free Blog Hosts, and no doubt that list has grown since then, for you to choose from.

A blog host provides you (the blogger to be) just about everything you’ll need to start up your blog:

• A virtual location: a website url address or domain name for your blog.
• Design templates: from color, to layout–you can choose the look of your blog
• Familiar text editors: If you’re familiar with how to use Microsoft Word, then you can easily write blog posts. Most of the text editors (what you use to write your blog posts) have been designed to look and feel like you’re working in Microsoft Word.

I myself am familiar with 3 blog hosting services: Blogger, WordPress (which is what NCG uses for its blog) and Xanga. You’ll have to come to a decision about which host you’ll use on your own.

Need some help?

Check out this article by Mahalo, about a quarter of the way down the page is a list of pros and cons for a few blogging host services.

Setting Up Your Blog

Here are some videos that explain how to set up a blog on the two most popular hosting services.

First, a tutorial on how to set up a blog through Blogger.

And here’s a video from Mahalo on how to set up a WordPress blog.

Mahalo’s article “How to Set Up a Blog for Beginners” goes into a lot more detail on how to set up your blog than I am in this post. So if you want a more thorough explanation, I recommend you take a look at their article.

Content Is King

This isn’t Seinfeld. I wouldn’t recommend a grantmaker write a blog about nothing. Instead, let me introduce you to a little saying we have here in our office:

“Content is king.”

We here at NCG started saying “Content is king” back when we were in the throes of re-designing our website. The phrase was a way to remind us that the most important thing was the content. It’s not the fancy bells and whistles you can put on your website, it’s the content of what you say that matters. In other words, people will visit our website because there is something useful and interesting there.

It’s also a little Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come…to your website.”

Content is what is going to make your blog interesting to others and make others interested in engaging with what you have to say via comments. Remember, the great thing about blogs is that they facilitate conversation.

Some Words Of Advice

Here are some words of advice I have for grantmakers who decide to start their own blogs:

Don’t worry! You don’t have to be a blogging superstar over night, or blog every single day. It’s more than okay to set expectations by stating right out that you are new to blogging, that you’ll only blog once a week, etc.

It can take a while for your blogging voice to emerge. It’ll happen organically, so just keep blogging and be yourself.

Read other Philanthropy blogs. Not only check out what your peers are writing, but read what the thinkers, critics and advocates are saying. And feel free to respond to them on your blog.

See you around in the blogosphere.

The Social Media & Grantmaking blog post series will cover a wide range of topics. Check out the introduction post outlining the series.

To see all the posts in this series, simply type “social media series” into the search box located upper right of this web page.