I will work from a center that is loving, forgiving and grateful. I will focus on being mindful of others. I will be generous with what I give and not be concerned with what I get in return.

I may fall short from time to time, my thoughts and behavior may not always be the shining example of what I want to be, but falling short is not a reason to quit. I will not change my self-image because of a few bad thoughts or actions. But I will challenge myself everyday to grow above pettiness and small mindedness to become a better person. When I shoot for the stars and only hit the moon I am still on the right track. Today I choose to shoot for the stars!

The best cause blogs are ones that consistently demonstrate gratitude.  While the authors give without expectation as John describes above, these blogs are often some of the most popular.  You’ll see more blog comments, more Facebook and Twitter followers and more traffic to these blogs.  It’s easy to see why with the following example.

Each month the bloggers at Heroes for Children, a group that helps families of children with cancer, recognizes a volunteer of the month.  But that’s just the beginning.

In a recent post titled Cancer Can’t Stop a Child (My experience at cancer camp) co-founder Jenny Scott said,

For the past six summers, I have been blessed to participate in Camp Discovery, a camp for kids with cancer ages 7-16….Just because these kids are cancer patients does not mean that they don’t have a blast. When I tell people I go to cancer camp, I often hear “oh, how sad.” No, not sad at all….I love Camp Discovery. It’s become a part of me, of who I am. The people have become my family. I have a t-shirt that says, “Until cancer is cured….There’s camp.” I’m so grateful for Camp Discovery and the week I spend with the volunteers and campers each summer.

In fact many of the posts include the words thank you! They thank their volunteers, fundraisers, donors, families, businesses, you name it.  You can tell that they are grateful to be able to serve the many children and families who need assistance.

Here are some recent blog posts about Facebook for nonprofit organizations:

Fundraising on Facebook from Ethan Austin, posted on Step by Step Fundraising

Ten steps to Facebook success for your nonprofit by Pamela Grow

Non-Profits on Facebook a guide published by Facebook itself

How to win at Facebook in three weeks not specifically about nonprofits, but great insights

Social Media Nonprofit Benchmarks from Allyson Kapin at Frogloop, interesting survey results

Three Ways to Define Your Target Audience A lesson in deciding who your audience is before you start blogging from Kivi Leroux Miller

3 Best Practices For Blogging by Abbi Siler; see #3 be passionate and know your audience

Blogosphere Trends + Your Blog’s Tone from Darren at Problogger

Know your sh*t. a look at why confidence and conviction are important in your writing from Olivier Blanchard

I recently started a new blog to help support a political campaign.  I knew I wanted to blog in support of this particular candidate, but knew I needed a specific angle.  I could have chosen to focus on one particular issue.  Jobs, the environment, the economy, education, these would have all made for a good topic specific blog, with all the post somehow related to the governor’s race and each candidate’s stand on the issue.  It would have attracted an audience that was keenly interested in that topic.  However I decided to focus on one target audience that I can personally identify with — moms.  Specifically, the audience is moms who live in Texas. So I named the blog Moms for Bill White.

Though this is apparently a “get out the vote” for this candidate, I don’t want to focus solely on opinion.  In fact I pride myself on research that I do, quoting multiple outside sources within a blog post.  This post in particular took some time and research: Rick Perry’s record on the environment.. It could actually have been a lot longer.  But I was not writing a dissertation here, just a blog post! To more closely target my audience, a follow up that discusses whether moms think the issue of the environment is important, and if so it what ways, is in order.

The blog is still pretty new so I’m still feeling my way around.  But I keep reminding myself that the content should be appealing to moms (and parents, okay dads you can read it too!)  Some of the future posts will include polls, videos and interviews with moms saying what is important to them in this election, and specifically why they are voting for Bill White.

I’ll post more updates about this blog in the future. Since it’s starting from scratch, focuses on a specific audience and is even time bound, it makes a great case study.

Last time I talked about setting goals and how to get both short and long term results with blogging. Today I’ll cover some of the technical details of setting up a blog using the Wordpress platform.

I think Wordpress is the easiest to use, and still offers a professional image. Blogger is okay and that is how I started years ago, but it is severely limited in many areas. Other great blogging platforms besides Wordpress include Typepad and Expression Engine. Some of these steps, like getting a domain name, apply not matter which blogging system you use. (Even on Blogger you can publish to your own name instead of blogspot.com)

7 Steps to Setting Up a Wordpress Blog

1. Choose a website name (domain)

So the first thing you need to do if you haven’t already, is to choose a name for your website. These days there are so many names already registered sometimes you have to be a bit creative. When I’m choosing a new domain name I usually use the tool at Network Solutions. I think it’s the easiest tool to use, to search to see if you name(s) you want are available.

Look for a name that is:

• Short, preferably a 1-3 word phrase
• Directly related to your organization or topic
• Preferably a .com or .org if you are a nonprofit
• Easy to remember

A few things to avoid:

• Dashes
• Numbers
• Sound-alike words
• Keyword phrases that create new words when strung together

I normally use GoDaddy.comsince I own quite a few names and they are the least expensive. However if you only need one domain name, you can just register it through your webhost. Some, like Hostgator, give you the domain for free.

2. Get a webhost

I’ve used several webhosts over the years… and experienced some horror stories. Downtime, terrible customer service, tough to use administration panels. To add insult to injury, then I had to move the website to another host which is another hassle.

After all this time, the one host that I have found to be the best is Hostgator. I’ve been with them for over 3 years and have no intention of leaving!

• Reliable, fast servers with 99.9% uptime
• cPanel (the easiest way to administer the backend technical website stuff)
• One click Wordpress blog install with Fantastico
• Customer service that can’t be beat
• Affordable – for one website, plans start at just $4.95 a month if you sign up for 3 years in advance or $6.95 if you just want to commit to one year.

To repeat, their customer service is amazing. Every time I’ve emailed or called, they made sure my questions were answered or issues were resolved fast. The company and customer service are based in Houston so I’m also glad to support my fellow Texans!

Click here to see all the Hostgator features & benefits and/or sign-up

3. One click Wordpress installation

Hostgator (and any webhost that offers cPanel) has an easy one-click installation for Wordpress. You simply login to your hosting account, go to the cpanel page, scroll down until you see the Fantastico button.

4. Creating a visual design & layout (theme)

Wordpress greatly simplifies the webdesign process. In fact you can start with a simple theme or even (gasp!) default and then update the design later.

When you change themes it impacts the layout, colors, text and overall look and some of the functionality, but your text stays in place so you don’t have to re-write anything. You can try out a new theme with the click of a button and if you don’t like it, choose another one!

To get some ideas you can look at other blogs. Here are 40 WordPress-Powered Websites With Awesome Designs.

I’ve used a lot of different themes from various providers, including free themes and premium themes. In general I prefer themes that you do have to pay for – as I’ve found fewer problems with them. Free = you often have to fix a lot of stuff. If you don’t know the code or don’t want to take the time (can be considerable and frustrating) go with a theme with a small fee.

Here are some of the premium themes that I have used and recommend. (Several of them have at least one free theme, so you can get an idea of how good their products are before you buy.)

After you download the theme from the website that offers it, upload the theme folder to the wp-content folder. Then go back to your wordpress login (it looks like http://yourblog.com/wp-admin). Click on Appearance on the left hand side, then Themes. Choose the theme you wish to install and confirm.

You can see how this theme looks by opening a new browser window or tab and going to your domain (i.e. http://yourblog.com). Keep in mind you’ll still have to do some tweaking like adding sidebar content and logos. So what you see when you first choose the theme may not be what it looks like when you are done. This is especially true if you have not added any posts or pages to your blog yet.

5. Create basic pages

Pages are timeless, items like the about page, donations and contact. Blog posts are time bound. John Haydon sums this up pretty well:

Posts are published in reverse chronological order on your Home Page or Blog Index Page, depending upon how you’ve configured your blog (Sticky posts will remain above your latest posts). This allows visitors to see your most recent content first, and digg for related posts within the archives. Pages have no date and time associated with them.

For further explanation see: WordPress posts vs. pages

Login to wordpress and create these basic pages. Click on Pages, then Edit. The software has already created an About page for you, so you can just edit that one. To add more just click Add New.

6. Set preferences

There are a few tweaks left for you to do in setting up your blog.

1. Go to Settings > General. Fill out the blanks – these are self explanatory
2. Settings > Permalinks. I recommend a name only URL rather than date based. Choose custom and only enter this: /%postname%/
3. Install Plugins. Upload these to the plugin folder, then activate from your Wordpress Admin. Here are the ones I recommend:

1. Subscribe to comments – Adds a simple checkbox so when people leave a comment they can get updated by email.
2. Spam Karma – Even though the designer is no longer maintaining it, it still works great for my blogs. Catching most of the spam.
3. Wordpress database backup – Makes backing up the datbase easy.
4. You need a contact form such as Contact form 7.
5. You can find other plugins at Wordpress.org

Keep in mind there are a lot of little details that I’m leaving out here for simplicity’s sake. There are other tweaks and plugins that will greatly improve your blog. These are just the basics.

7. Start posting

Now you can start posting! Simply go to Posts > Add New and start writing. Wordpress comes with a built in editor that is pretty easy to use (the Visual tab.) There are many tutorials and books that you can get if you need more help. But for the most part you will learn just by doing.

By following the steps above you are on your way to a great blogging experience!

For a single person under the age of 65, the poverty threshold is an annual income of $10,836. In the state of California, a person who works full-time at a minimum wage job will make just over $15,000. That’s before taxes.

Read more Ten Things You Should Know About Poverty In America

As a reader of blogs there are a few things that I find really annoying.

1. Posted by “admin” – who is this famous admin person? Please use a real name.
2. Difficult to find contact information.
3. Default blog themes. Don’t use the default or basic theme that comes with Wordpress or Blogger.
4. Speaking of… blogger standard themes are so cheesy.
5. Difficult to read text: white on dark background, small fonts and/or huge blocks of text.

So what are your blog pet peeves?  Leave a comment below.

SXSW was definitely worth the trip.  Someday I’d like to stay for the music festival.  Just missed Jakob Dylan live, but managed to listen via Austin’s KGSR Radio.

A few snaps from the show…

Finally met Karen from Volunteer Spot.  She is one woman on a mission!  She founded the website to help people organize volunteer efforts and it now has over 100,000 members.

I missed the Four Hour Work Week book signing, but was glad to get a copy anyway. Thanks eLance guys!  Also from the elance blog…here’s an update on the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator that I posted on last time.  Wish I had had time to see more of the pitches.

And here are the reasons I’m glad to be back home – Troy and baby Micah, now 4 months.

Twitter Talk with Evan Williams

The keynote with Twitter founder Evan Williams was totally packed.  I was in the actual exhibit hall but there were overflow rooms with a rebroadcast.  It wasn’t a keynote speech at all, but an interview. It was kind of like eavesdropping on a conversation, as if a thousand people were not watching.  They kind of rambled but there were some notable quotes:

“Whatever you assume when you start [a business] — you are wrong.”  Experiment, listen and correct.

Williams says Twitter is committed to reaching the “weakest signals.” In countries without good internet access they offer SMS.  Example…It helped disaster relief efforts after the earthquake in Chile.

That “anyone can publish on the web is still profound. We in this room take it for granted.”

Advice to entrepreneurs “Focus on one thing.” Great reminder.

Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator

This was cool…startups had 2 minutes to pitch their business to a panel of judges.  Kind of like Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank, except there was no offer at the end.  There are more pitches left and the finals will be tomorrow.  Thanks to Karen at Volunteer Spot for suggesting this session.

The Cause Lab: Ending Hunger

We came in late to this one and joined the discussion in progress.  I’ve never seen something like this at an internet conference. There were three discussion groups all talking about one aspect of how to tackle hunger in America.  In our group we discussed how to create hunger free communities – local level action.  There were a lot of great ideas from all three groups (each presented a summary at the end.)

Their website is WeCanEndThis.com also check out this movie: Hungry In America.

After the session I had a great conversation with two cool chicks from Participant Media, who produced the Academy Award nominated documentary Food Inc. If you have not seen it, rent, Netflix buy a copy ASAP.

A couple of points that he makes that I’d like to emphasize:

Give your readers a reason to share. Useful information. This sums it up quite well. Readers need a reason to want to share all the knowledge and information you’re providing to them…

There are many ways to practice this in a cause blog. For example, say you write a blog for the skin cancer foundation. How about a post on the best ways to minimize sun exposure? You could write a post explaining the difference in the SPF ratings and which ones experts recommend. How about a post on how often you should get moles screened? These are informative posts that your audience can use and are likely to share with others. This is the opposite of only writing posts about what the foundation is doing.

He also advises to stick to a specific topic:

While there are exceptions in every niche, you’ll mostly want to stick to one general “theme” of information. The more categories you have random things, the more polluted and dissolved your information will be in the eyes of search engines.

Having more categories and random topics also creates a lack of focus that will effect your readership, not just search engines or visitors from search.

Sometimes it takes awhile to get into the groove, to see what specific subjects get the most interest and are most relevant to your audience. On the other hand, it can save you a lot of time and hassle if you start off with a specific niche. Instead of blogging about your entire operation, why not just set up a blog for a specific program? For example, a food bank could focus their blog just on childhood hunger programs like backpacks and Kids Cafe.

The only point of disagreement I have with Josh’s advice is about Digg. I have used Digg over the years but have not found much benefit from it. On the other hand it is easy to set up your blog to automatically post links to your Facebook and Twitter profiles. Just be sure to set up a Facebook page for your cause instead of a personal page.