Guiding Vision

I have had several discussions with non-internet people, i.e. those who don’t spend hours everyday online or make a living because of the internet, about whether technology is bringing people together or isolating them. For me it’s a no-brainer, I can name so many examples of how the web is connecting people from distant lands – rural and urban, developed nations and developing, east and west, north and south. I have personally “met” people from many cultures and language backgrounds who are working in a variety of fields.

One story in particular really touched my heart, and is a testament to the positive outcomes of social networking and blogging.  For any internet nay-sayers out there who still think that technology is keeping people apart, the following story will hopefully persuade otherwise.

Stephanie Nielson enjoyed writing about her experiences being a mom on her blog, the Nie Nie Dialougues. She had attracted quite a following of other moms who appreciated her encouraging posts. After Stephanie and her husband Christian were in a plane crash, an outpouring of support came from readers, most of whom had never met her. Over $100,000 has been donated to help with the medical expenses.

Stephanie’s friend and blog reader Wendy Whitacre said in the Today Show feature:

In this case we’ve formed a whole new community, a community of complete strangers who all care about one thing. In this case a family who’s in need.

You can hear more about his inspiring story in NBC Today show video or this story in the Arizona Daily Star.

Nearly one year ago I did a crazy thing by signing up to be a speaker at a non profit fundraising conference.  Being a speaker at a seminar was one of my goals for the year so I was glad to be able to say I’d achieved that goal.  I figured I could give my talk and that would be that.  Famous last words right?

Along with Kim Young and Louis Murad, I participated in the session about online fundraising.  Kim gave a great talk about online marketing and fundraising basics.  Louis focused on his area of expertise which is auctions.  Now along with live and silent auctions, Louis adds online auctions to the mix so groups can raise more funds.  I focused my talk on blogging.  I started by discussing the basics of defining what a blog is and why non-profits should be blogging.  Then I went through some technical issues and resources.

I noticed something quite fascinating during my presentation.  There were about 15 or so people in attendance so it was easy to connect with the audience.  While I spoke some people were nodding their heads and seemed quite interested.  Others seemed genuinely baffled, which was fairly obvious by the puzzled looks on their faces.  I answered some questions along the way and quickly realized there was a wide range of technical knowledge in the group.  There were a few with little, if any, idea of what a blog even was.  Some who had personal blogs had a hard time translating that into what blogging for a non-profit would look like.  I concluded the talk by showcasing a couple of examples of charity blogs.  This seemed to help.  But I knew that there was something more that these groups needed to be able to take advantage of the power of blogging.

Driving home from the seminar I thought about how I could further encourage charitable groups to blog.  After all I have quite a bit of experience with the medium, through personal blogging and by running my website Step by Step Fundraising on the WordPress blog platform since 2005.  I’ve been following some of the big names, those that give advice on blogging.  But I never really had an interest in blogging about blogging — until I realized that non-profits were in need of someone to guide them through this process.

So after a few weeks of mulling the idea over, I had a lightbulb moment and all of these ideas that had been floating around my mind came together when I though of the name, Cause Blogger.

It might have been good if I’d immediately started writing here then, but the timing wasn’t quite right yet.  In the meantime I have been working on several other projects such as building up Charity Mile and Top School Fundraisers.  There are now several freelance bloggers who are writing for those two sites.  I’ve also built complete websites for two charities using the WordPress blogging platform.  Finally, I’ve recently moved into a new office space where there are two other people working with me in order to grow our mission of connecting non profits with fundraising and other resources.  It has been a busy year!

Now I finally have time to begin writing here on Cause Blogger.  I am so excited and have a very long list of topics that I am ready to cover.  I also have the extra push because very soon I will be attending one conference and speaking at another!