blogging

Thanks to Steve Andrews of Whitewater for this post pointing to a terrific example of how Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) is using blogs to put donors directly in touch with the work they’re supporting.

Canadian doctor, James Maskalyk, is working for MSF in Abyei, Sudan. He is writing a blog about his experiences. It’s truly inspirational stuff; particularly because it comes directly from him in real time, not in a sanitised quarterly charity newsletter. He shares his doubts, his fears, his hopes and his triumphs. He happens to write beautifully, but it doesn’t matter when he leaves uncorrected typos or uses poor grammar. Because it’s real.

Here’s the link to Dr. Maskalyk’s MSF blog.

One commenter / donor wrote:

I have been a monthly donor to MSF for some time. On Tuesday, I will ramp up by contribution, because I have a house, a job, a healthy beautiful sometimes-maddening daughter, a garden, rain, food - and hope. I wish I could give those things to the mother whose baby you tried to save. I cannot, so I will do what I can.

Steve titles his post “Real Close”, which I think is right on the money.

I wish ;-)

Thanks to Hugh :: http://www.gapingvoid.com/

I can’t really sign off without pointing you to Michael Baler’s Blogs And CRM for non-profits piece published in the NonProfit Times last May, but (still) one of the best introductions to this topic.

My daughter Nelly was shuttled off to infant school this morning dressed as “Super Nelly” with a pocketful of loose change. Yes, it’s that time again: Red Nose Day.

But did you know that 100 British bloggers have contributed to a book to raise funds for Comic Relief? You do now.

The book, “Shaggy Blog Stories: a collection of amusing tales from the UK blogosphere”, is the idea of Mike Atkinson who writes the ‘Troubled Diva’ blog.

The book went from idea to finished product in a “ridiculously short” seven days, using the latest publishing-on-demand technology.

To ORDER THE BOOK - it’s less than 10 quid - visit Lulu.com.

Take a look at Mike’s blog for the background story on how “Shaggy Blog Stories” came about.

Finally, after the laughter dies down, remind yourself here, and here, why all this silly stuff every two years.

Oh, and finally (finally)… I’ll be publishing an interview with Martin Gill, Head of New Media at Comic Relief, sometime next week. Hopefully.