If you’re looking for a way to give back to your community, then look no further than Make A Difference Day.

Sponsored by USA WEEKEND Magazine and its more than 600 carrier newspapers, Make A Difference Day is billed as “the most encompassing national day of helping others — a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors.”

Make A Difference Day is held in partnership with the Points of Light Foundation and supported by Paul Newman, who donates $10,000 each on behalf of 10 of the participating charitable initiatives.

Make A Difference Day is an annual event that takes place on the fourth Saturday of every October. This year, that would be October 22, 2005.

If you want to take part in this very special day devoted to volunteerism, but you don’t know where to start, the Idea Generator — which is a great idea in and of itself — will help you “take that all-important first step to making a difference in the world.”

If you’ve ever read Yvonne DiVita’s Lip-Sticking, you know what I mean when I say it’s arguably one of the best blogs in the blogosphere. It’s a prolific, practical account of what’s what and who’s who in online marketing to women – and much, much more. Yvonne – as Jane, her alter ego – is able to provide her readers with almost as much humor as business insight and intelligence, and as she herself would say, what’s not to like about that?

I was very fortunate – and honored – to have just been interviewed by Yvonne for a series of profiles she posts regularly of online marketing professionals. In this interview, Jane asked me if I thought that blogging could really be as personal as, say, a phone call, or a face-to-face meeting. This was my answer:

I suppose no communications medium can ever compare to an up-close and personal conversation in which the sender and receiver are physically present, but you still can’t underestimate the power of social software. The Cluetrain Manifesto, which was published about six years ago, had it right when it said that people, thanks to the Internet, are “discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed” and that markets “are getting smarter faster than most companies.” Whether traditional business likes it or not, blogging is an inevitability. Blogging is that new kind of global conversation that the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto wrote about way back when.

To read the rest of the interview – in which I opine (but, hopefully, not bloviate) on everything from what role blogging can play in marketing to the differences in how men and women blog – click here.

If you’re interested in monitoring the confirmation hearing of Chief Justice nominee John G. Roberts, you may be interested in monitoring NominationWatch.org.

But that’s not the only reason to check out this relatively new blog published by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), a group dedicated to advancing and protecting women’s legal rights. NominationWatch.org is also an excellent example of how a nonprofit organization can use a blog to get the word out about its cause.

Take it from Nancy Schwartz, editor and publisher of Getting Attention, a monthly e-newsletter that helps nonprofits succeed through effective communications. She’s just written and posted an insightful case study of NominationWatch.org called “Three Steps to Launching Your Nonprofit Blog.”

According to Schwartz’s article, “Ranit Schmelzer, NWLC vice president for communications, says that for years the organization has relied on traditional press outreach tools (press releases and conferences, and teleconferences). But driven by the importance of the current judicial debates, Schmelzer and her colleagues landed on a blog as the most effective way to get ‘get substance out in small bytes.’”

“Frequency,” writes Schwartz, “and the decision to vary it based on the news, is central to the blog’s editorial policy.”

“Another component of NominationWatch.org’s editorial policy is the bloggers themselves,” adds Schwartz. “What’s unusual is that there’s a team of bloggers (writers include NCLW’s two co-presidents and two of its vice presidents, while two staff members serve as editors) who are assigned daily and weekly blog tasks.”

To learn what else the National Women’s Law Center is doing right with its blog, read the case study in its entirety here.

From the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), I recently learned about Word of Blog, a free service that “enables blog owners to spread ideas and influence throughout the blogosphere, promote causes or services that they believe in, recommend products and organizations they like, and create communities of like-minded blog owners, all through blog word of mouth.”

To use this service, all a blogger needs to do is select any ad appearing on the Word of Blog site, then copy and paste the corresponding code into your template – like I did with ads for both The American Red Cross and Feed the Children, just two of the many organizations that are helping victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

On the other hand, if you yourself want to get the word out in the blogosphere (this is a great opportunity for the “shoestring” direct marketers – nota bene nonprofits – among us), you can submit your ad here.

Survivors of Hurricane Katrina are being evacuated away from the devastated Gulf Coast and food, water and thousands of National Guard troops have finally arrived on the scene, but a complete recovery from this disaster is going to take months, if not years, and an unprecedented outpouring of benevolence.

Yes, we Americans are going to have to give more than we ever have before to help our brothers and sisters in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and the surrounding area get back on their own feet.

In the next few weeks alone, we’ll likely part with more of our charitable dollars than we ever have before towards one single cause.

And, as a result, those nonprofit organizations that are not related to the hurricane relief efforts could very well see a decrease in their own fundraising efforts during this period of time. (But they’ll make up for it in the long run.)

Right now all hearts are with those who were so innocently – and unfortunately – in harm’s way when Hurricane Katrina blew into land.

To help all the victims of what just may be the worst – and most expensive – natural disaster to ever hit the United States, please give generously today.

Here is a list of just some of the organizations that will accept your financial donation and put it to good use towards the Gulf Coast relief efforts:

American Red Cross

America’s Second Harvest

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary

Feed the Children

Habitat for Humanity

MercyCorps

Network for Good

Noah’s Wish

Save the Children

Salvation Army

The United Way

United Jewish Communities Humanitarian Relief Fund

If you’re looking for a reason to blog, you need look no further than the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, from Louisiana to Florida, where Katrina’s fierce winds and brutal, punishing rain resulted in what could be America’s deadliest natural disaster since the 1906 San Francisco fire and earthquake.

As I wrote here back in December, 2004, “a blog makes it possible for the everyday communications professional to distribute newsworthy, thematic content to a large, like-minded audience – without many, if any, layers of approval – almost instantaneously. If timeliness is a critical element of your publishing plan, it’s an irresistible platform.”

Today, there’s no valid reason for any organization involved in the business of providing disaster relief not to have a blog in its communications toolbox.

A blog can be set up immediately and inexpensively.

And by granting the opportunity to respond to any and all posts, a blogger is able to open a dialogue, receive constructive feedback and build an honest, mutually-beneficial relationship with his or her constituency.

A blog is a centralized repository for experience and expertise, an incredibly easy way to disseminate key, timely news and information to an audience of readers who are already interested in what you have to offer or – in the case of fundraising – ask of them.

A blog is infectious, too. Like a good viral marketing campaign, the content of the best blogs is passed from reader to reader, extending the author’s reach – and influence – exponentially.

A perfect example of how a blog can be used as an emergency response to a natural disaster is The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami (or SEA-EAT) blog, which features a post today on blogging for disaster relief (today has been proclaimed International Blogging for Disaster Relief Day) and – in a touch of bittersweet irony – Hurricane Katrina.

Other random online initiatives, resources and noteworthy responses on behalf of all the helpless, innocent victims on the Gulf Coast:

*An “Emergency Update” on Hurricane Katrina from Covenant House at 4 PM on Monday, the day of the storm, was the first appeal for financial assistance I took delivery of by email.

*The second request I received for an online donation was on Tuesday at 6:16 PM. It was from the American Red Cross, and the subject line read, “Situation Critical: Emergency Mobilization Underway.”

*Just before midnight on Tuesday arrived another Hurricane Katrina-related email, this one from Governor Howard Dean of The Democratic Party, asking me to help the disaster relief effort by donating to – again – the American Red Cross.

*On August 29, the folks at NPAdvisors.com announced that they have launched a blog, saying: “We decided that now is the time to start posting our thoughts about disaster fundraising so that all nonprofits can participate in the discussion.” Their blog can be found here.

*The September 1 edition of Denny Hatch’s Business Common Sense featured an interesting column on “Dealing with Katrina and 9/11.”

*Charity Folks, a leading online auction venue that provides technology-based solutions to nonprofit organizations, just opened bidding in an auction to benefit the victims of Katrina as well as thousands of other disasters that the American Red Cross responds to each year.

*Paul Chaney, President of the Radiant Marketing Group and a Mississippi resident, has been blogging all week about this catastrophic event.

*Nonprofit technology consultant Deborah Elizabeth Finn reports that her friend, Andy Carvin, of the Digital Divide Network, has created a Katrina Aftermath web site.

*Grassroots.org has declared that all online donations it receives during the month of September will go towards relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

*According to today’s edition of DIRECT Newsline, The Marketing Research Association (MRA) has launched a Researcher-to-Researcher Relief Assistance Blog “to aid any marketing and research professionals that have been affected by Hurricane Katrina.”

*And, finally, via B.L. Ochman’s What’s Next Blog, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary “has set up online information and resources about animal rescue groups efforts in the aftermath of Katrina.”