Comments on: Foundation Blogs II

By: Albert Ruesga

Albert Ruesga — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:38:41 +0000

Our colleague Phil Cubeta has sounded the same lament on many occasions. I’m grateful to you for raising this important issue again.

First, I would make a distinction between an institutional blog, which is little more than unremarkable web content dressed as a blog, and a real blog, in which a real mind helps advance a given conversation. A variety of factors prevent there being more real foundation blogs:

1. What the Mysterious M says is clearly true. Foundations are largely Web 0.2 institutions in a rapidly approaching Web 3.0 world.

2. Many foundations adhere strictly to a kind of “message discipline” and blogs are inherently undisciplined. (A blogger who doesn’t take a chance, who already knows the answer to each question he or she raises, isn’t really a blogger in my view.) Foundations do this in part because they fear the current regulatory environment.

3. Most foundations might not have anything valuable to say – and why should they? Their ability to do good foundation work doesn’t necessarily require them to think and communicate great thoughts.

4. While attitudes toward blogs are changing, I think some people still look at them as beneath contempt – something no respectable person would do.

5. Some foundations (not many, I would guess) have very well thought-out communications goals and plans, and blogs might not be an especially effective way of advancing those goals.

And there are many other reasons I’ve heard philanthropoids discuss.

By: Bruce Trachtenberg

Bruce Trachtenberg — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:56:17 +0000

I might have mentioned this in a previous comment, but one president who blogs is Bob Connor of the Teagle Foundation. And on our website, we report about a recent experiment in which MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton took part in a http://www.comnetwork.org/spotlightmacfound.htm” rel=”nofollow”>webchat so he could answer questions about the foundation from anyone, anywhere who wanted to take part. Thanks to the internet, things are moving in the right direction.

By: M

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:42:45 +0000

I just don’t think they understand how to use the internet at all. We have a website, and until recently it was just our guidelines, forms, and contact info. We’ve made progress by adding a monthly column from the president.

A lot of the program and executive staff just don’t understand computers. I’ve seriously had to sit some of them down and explain “how the internet works” and all kinds of little tech things that they just can’t be bothered to learn.

They are afraid of the changing technology. It’s new and different to them. I’ve been participating in various online communities (BBS, listservs, forums, blogs) since 1995, it’s just second nature to me.

I’ve been trying to push them along via an intranet, which will finally be set up by the end of the month for me to beta test before letting the program staff have at it.

Once they can see the benefits of knowledge sharing through technology *inside* of the organization, then maybe I can sell them on the benefits of using it publicly.

I think having CoF inviting bloggers to cover the conference is a big step in the right direction. It will raise the profile of blogging in the foundation community. Hopefully the media session will give me information to bring back home so I can teach them.