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Relationship Building Versus Publishing: Five Ways to Reframe the Nonprofit CEO Weblog

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By Michael C. Gilbert, July 20, 2009
 

I'm teaching a new workshop this week on blogging for nonprofit CEOs and it became clear to me that I was working, as I often am, from a different frame of reference in my design. I'm pleased to share some implications of that reframing with you here.
 

Nonprofit executives - whether they style themselves a CEO, an Executive Director, a President, or something else entirely - are in the relationship building business. We build relationships with allies, donors, board members, community leaders, employees, and others. The very foundation of our work is the relationships we've built, on our own behalf and on behalf of our organization. But when it comes to the pursuit of new media, we forget the basics of our work and the fundamentals of our jobs as leaders.

A weblog is best seen not as a publication but as a relationship building tool. This is especially true for the weblogs of nonprofit leaders. If we look at such a blog as a publication, then it's yet another thing the CEO has to write for, yet another thing that needs design and promotion, yet another obligation with no clear purpose. But if it is framed from the start as a relationship building tool, then it becomes an exciting, synergistic, and sustainable activity.

Here are five ways in which this changes how we look at nonprofit CEO blogging:

1. Metrics: With a publication, we are always on the lookout for large numbers. We want lots of readers, lots of page impressions, and so on. With a relationship building tool, we are happier with smaller numbers of readers, so long as they also comment or blog elsewhere or forward our links or write to us personally.
    
   More importantly, to a large degree we are writing for those people and therefore must pay attention to them ourselves, wherever they may themselves be writing.
2. Promotion: With a publication, we push out content and then try to promote it. Read my stuff, we ask - we demand! With a blog, in many ways the most important promotion comes before the content. We're already part of several overlapping communities of practice. Who are we writing for? Responding to? That's what guides us.
3. Readers: With a publication, we treat our readers as consumers. We're the author. We're the producer. With a relationship building tool, we're all authors. We're all producers. We listen as much as we talk. We link to others more than we hope to be linked to ourselves.
    
   We critique and praise and reframe, but above all, we treat other thought leaders as though they were our readers and our readers as though they were thought leaders.
4. Comparisons: With a publication, we compare a blog to a newsletter or a regular website. With a relationship building tool, we compare it to writing email, making phone calls, and participating in professional events. Chances are good we already invest substantial time in those activities and thus blogging is just another tool in the toolbox. Rather than the need for a post pushing us up against deadline, we write more organically, and decide that the best way to approach something might be with a blog post.
5. Workload: With a publication, working on the blog isn't necessarily something we would do anyway. With a relationship building tool, we're following our passions for ideas and for connecting with people in a more natural way. This means at the very least that there is synergy between blogging and our current work. Most likely it means that blogging will take the place of at least some of the correspondence, research, networking, and thinking aloud that we're already doing.
    

The result of this reframing is that a CEO blog is not another burden to take on. The specifics will depend on the exact nature of your communities of practice as a leader, the sorts of stakeholders and peers you have, and the mix of your current relationship building practices. Your weblog may well prove to be one of those tools that fits perfectly, that pulls it all together, that strengthens the foundation of your work.

If you found this article interesting or helpful,
please consider making a donation to Nonprofit Online News.
It will probably feel good!