Why simply dip a toe in the water when you can make a big splash? I’m guessing that’s what the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) had in mind when it recently begun publishing not just one, but seven different blogs. In a press release on August 1, the association said it is “experimenting with blogs as a way of keeping members better informed about stories, events and trends in the charitable sector.”

The AFP blogs (on such topics as youth and philanthropy, the Southeast Asia tsunami relief efforts, National Philanthropy Day and the 2005 International Conference on Fundraising) can be found here.

While we can safely say that business blogs have not only arrived, they’re here to stay, that doesn’t mean there are still not a number of good reasons why someone might not want – or be able – to establish a presence in the blogosphere.

Indeed, even if you’re comfortable expressing yourself so openly to so many – think transparency (which, by the way, should be listed among every organization’s set of values, right up there with integrity, accountability, etc.) – there are still a few impediments to overcome (what I would call The Immutable Three T’s) if you want to be a bona fide blogger…

The Immutable Three T’s of Blogging

1) Time – Most blogs take at least a few hours a week to write and maintain, the best among them much longer.

2) Talent – As a blogger, you’re not writing the great American novel, but you are putting words to computer screen over the course of a long, indefinite period of time. To build and hold an audience, you need to have the gift of gab and be part essayist, journalist, critic and commentator.

3) Topic – To write a successful blog, you need to be as prolific as you are informed, repeatedly producing fresh, new content that your readers will find interesting and worthwhile.

There’s another barrier to blogging, however, one that’s more a matter of perception than reality, but that’s just the same causing many prospective bloggers to give pause before writing even a single post.

Blog is not a pretty word.

Yes, it may have won top honors as Merriam-Webster’s most looked-up word in 2004, but you don’t have to have a Ph.D. in English to know that blog is an odd-looking word with a pejorative – albeit undeserved – connotation.

Blog sounds like blob, which is defined as “an indistinct, shapeless form,” a “splotch” or a “dribble,” not exactly something you want to come to mind if your language is otherwise the lexicon of business, if your world is one in which customers are targeted and profits tallied.

Blog is short for Web log, and is stereotypically associated with those cathartic, online diaries kept by moody, meandering teenagers (despite the rapid proliferation of business blogs of all kinds, most of which are being written by some of the heaviest hitters in their fields of endeavor).

No, the word, blog, just doesn’t do justice to the power and popularity of this self-publishing platform as it relates to the corporate world.

Blog as a word makes it easier for the naysayers and the highfalutin to dismiss blogging as a fad not to be taken seriously, as a pastime better left at home than practiced at the office.

Ouch….

There is the possibility, however, that we won’t have this word to kick around forever, that a blog will be called something entirely different in the not-too-distant future, something that resonates more with the traditional majority, something that speaks more to the value of this new communications model and mindset.

As business blogging expert, Debbie Weil, says on her own blog, BlogWrite for CEOs: “For the many who aren’t immersed in the blogosphere, the word is nasty. And negative. And makes them wary of this whole blogging thing.”

To read more of what Debbie has to say about the word, blog, and its future, click here.

The blog has come a long way in just the last year alone, but with Donald Trump now waxing eloquently in the blogosphere, a good argument could be made that this revolutionary self-publishing and marketing platform has gone from the outhouse to the penthouse. Read all about it here in Information Week.

Elsewhere…DIRECT magazine reports that DM hiring is on the rise.

The NonProfit Times issues its 8th annual Power & Influence Top 50.

FundRaising Success magazine weighs in on the state of online fundraising today (”From Buttons to Blogs” by Paul Barbagallo).

Bob Bly pits blogs versus white papers in his most recent reader survey.

Mike Westfall, on Annual Fund Inc. (August 11, 2005), shares some best practices for e-solicitations to college and university alumni.

And finally, for the nonprofits among us who are exploring the blogosphere, you just have to check out Lisa Meyers Brown’s post (via Diva Marketing, thank you) on blogging and the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life program.

In the latest issue of Details magazine (June/July 2005, p. 99), columnist Jonathan Sabin plays the devil’s advocate and argues that rubber wristbands – such as those ubiquitous yellow ones that have helped the Lance Armstrong Foundation raise so much money for such a good cause – should be banned.

Who would have thought that one man’s solution to cancer prevention and survivorship would be another man’s problem with marketing and philanthropy?

“Today nearly 50 million are looped around self-righteous wrists as the cheesy trinkets metastasize like the cancers they’re supposed to help cure,” writes Sabin, taking an unseemly, cheap shot – in my opinion – at not just one of the most popular charitable organizations going right now, but at the business of direct response fundraising as a whole.

In the same article, Sabin claims “the problem is that we’ve become a nation of philanthropic exhibitionists.”

I can think of worse things to show off than one’s benevolence.

Indeed, with all due respect to Jonathan Sabin, I think the real problem is the fact that there is so much disease and poverty and injustice in the world.

I think the real problem is that there are not enough people who are willing to give selflessly of themselves on behalf of others less fortunate.

If Americans take pride in their generosity and are wearing these wristbands as status symbols, so be it.

If fundraisers have a way of bringing in more charitable gifts, good for them and their beneficiaries, good for those who are counting on them to provide as much financial assistance and emotional relief as possible.

Why rain on Lance Armstrong’s seemingly endless parade of inspiration, courageousness and goodwill?

Sure, many people, young and old alike, enjoy wearing these wristbands as much because they’re a hip, new fashion statement as a way to help others. But that doesn’t matter.

What matters is that by offering such a cool tchotchke, nonprofit organizations of all kinds are able to amass more individual contributions (because the demand for wristbands is so strong), a higher average gift (because people are willing to give more when they’re getting something extra in return) and a glut of free publicity and promotion (because such body ornaments are attracting so much attention).

What matters is that more money is being raised to help more people in need, people who really couldn’t care less if donors want to wear silly rubber wristbands in their honor, as long as the reason for this jewelry gives them a reason to hope and believe in the future.