RSS is an opportunity for nonprofits

Really Simple Syndication or RSS is a powerful technology that is underused in the nonprofit sector.

'In a nutshell, RSS is a simple XML-based system that allows users to subscribe to their favorite websites. Using RSS, a webmaster can put their content into a standardised format, which can be viewed and organised through a RSS-aware software.  RSS-aware software can include other web pages as well.' (Wikipedia)

So, a nonprofit's supporters could subscribe to an organization's RSS feed and get news about the organization through a news aggregator like My Yahoo.

For a more detailed definition go to wikipedia (link).  But Wait!  Before you go.  If you're not a technotype - you might fall asleep before you finish reading the wiki.  So let me just give you a few quick steps that your organization can take to get and benefit from the powerful technology.

Step one.  Get your own feed. 

The simplest way to do this is to start your own blog.  It's free and there are a number of blogging sites.  Typepad and Blogger come to mind but there are others.  If you don't know what a blog is or whether your organization should have one then you can read this.  But really you should get some advice on how your organization should employ the internet as an outreach and revenue generation tool.

Another way to get your own feed is to create an XML document from the content on your own site.  Stuff that you already have! 

Here's an example of an RSS 2.0 file (looks scary but it isn't - read on after the code):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
   
    <item>
      <title>The title of your article</title>
      <link>http://www.thelink.html</link>
      <description>How do Americans get ready to work with Russians aboard the
        International Space Station? They take a crash course in culture, language
        and protocol at Russia's Star City.</description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Jun 2003 09:39:21 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>
   
    <item>
      <title>Space Exploration</title>
      <link>http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/</link>
      <description>Sky watchers in Europe, Asia, and parts of Alaska and Canada
        will experience a partial eclipse of the Sun on Saturday, May 31st.</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 30 May 2003 11:06:42 GMT</pubDate>
    </item>

</channel>
</rss>

Looks scary but it isn't.  A volunteer intern would manage this for you.  Simply create an document using notepad and copy and paste the code above.  Then break down the news and articles in your site by giving them a title, description, and date of publication.  Then enter that info in between the tags that say <title>, <description>, and <pubdate> respectively.  Do that for each item of content in your feed.  Then save the file.  After you save it, rename the file to have a '.xml' file extension instead of the '.txt' extension.  Put the new xml document on your web server and voila!  RSS feed for your organization.  It is really that simple and I am serious when I tell you that one of your high school volunteers could whip this up for you lickety split.

Step two.  Ask your members to post the feed on their sites

This is sort of different from 'subscribing' to the feed.  Someone who subscribes to your feed will simply get your news in whatever program they use to read the feeds.  Instead what you should ask people to do is display the contents of your feed on their web site.  There are close to 100,000 blogs out there and countless web sites.  All nonprofits should have some members that have a blog or site that they can use to display your feed.  Feedburner is a great service that is FREE and will 'burn' your feed and provide the code for you to distribute to your members to display your feed on their site.  Give them the code and ask them to paste it in the html of their own site or blog

There are 2 great benefits to this:

1.  You get links to your website on other sites and this will vastly improve your search engine rankings.

2.  People reading the sites of your members will see your news - more eyeballs on your information with links to get to your site to boot.

This is a low maintenance, free, and powerful way that your supporters or socially responsible businesses can contribute to your effort without directly donating.

Step three.  Publicize your feed

You can do this on Feedburner easily by clicking the 'Publicize' tab and follow the instructions.  This will also improve your search engine rankings.

And all of this is for free.  Make sure you include your e-newsletter signup page and donation page as items in your XML.  Update your XML file/ RSS feed promptly and regularly if you're not automatically generating the file from a database.

That's it.   Spreading the word about your organization has never been so easy.  Send me an email if you have questions on how to do this. sburadagunta@blueskycollaborative.com.

Comments

[florida rentals]

Just wanted to take time to thank you for this nice site. I found it by accident but I will return for sure. Lots of helpful information that I found very interesting. Thanks again.