To follow up with the previous post "Who is Roy?" about non-profits needing to incorporate more interactive sites (i.e. comment boards or blogs), Stephen VanDyke has an excellent blog entry titled “How News Travels on the Internet.” Stephen has designed a nice little chart showing the flow of information on the Web. The diagram shows the influence of what you referred to as "amateur" journalism via blogs on other Internet news sites and the eventual progression of good research posted on a blog to traditional print or broadcast media.

I hope non-profits look at this and see the value of using an interactive site to discuss their progressive messages. The ability to simply create an active online community of activists that are interested in an organization’s cause is amazing. And by creating a space like a blog, a non-profit will make its members or interested public feel that they are more involved with the organization and increase their dedication to the organization, cause, and may even motivate the activists to give a few bucks. Not to mentioned the posts to the organization’s blog could also supply valuable information to the organization. Essentially a non-profit can use a blog to create a volunteer think tank that supplies the organization with important information and feedback, creates a strong activist community for the non-profit and generates a site that constantly has new information.