2012 Nonprofit PR Awards: Blog(s)

Winner: Population Services International – Healthy Lives Blog

The world’s population was projected to reach 7 billion by Oct. 31, 2011, and it was on that date—not coincidentally—that Population Services International, a nonprofit organization that focuses on family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria and contaminated water, planned to relaunch its Healthy Lives blog. The blog had become a bit of a swamp itself—it was rarely updated and logged fewer than 400 page vies per month. PSI tapped blogger and consultant Mark Leon Greenberg to help rejuvenate the blog and turn it into a powerful communications vehicle to promote PSI’s work and share its stories.

The blog’s new design and the seriousness of PSI’s intent convinced PSI experts to contribute posts. “Traditionally, most of our communication efforts have been focused internally—to promote best practices and lessons learned among our staff and partner organizations,” says Marshall Stowell, director, corporate marketing, communications and advocacy, PSI. “Having staff write publicly about their work in an open forum like a blog required something of a cultural shift. However, as the platform gained in popularity and a few staff members started regularly sharing ideas over the blog the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.” 

The success of the relaunch would also depend on regular, daily news content. The problem was solved by the creation of “The Healthy Dose”—an aggregation of global health news that stakeholders would come to depend on. This proved to be so successful that readers asked for an e-letter version of the Dose. Subscriptions to the e-letter helped boost traffic to the relaunched blog, which now averages 13,000 page views per month. —SG

Honorable Mentions:

American Institute of Certified Public Accountants – AICPA Insights: AICPA determined through its own research that its members tend to be spectators and joiners, but are rarely critics and creators, making engagement with its blog something of a challenge. By focusing on an issue that really matters to its audience—the CPA Exam—the Insights blog has scored more than 95,000 visitors since it launched on July 11, 2011.

Cone Communications – What Do You Stand For? Blog: This one-stop destination for all nonprofit and CR- and cause-related news marked its fourth year by producing more tips-oriented content that turns the contributors’ experience into easy-to-consume guides and best practices.