How do YOU ‘give something back’ with your blogging?
Blogging has given so much to me:
- financially it’s given me a living, paid my mortgage and put food on the table for my family now for 5 or so years.
- socially it’s opened up some fantastic opportunities for new friends.
- it’s taken me around the world to speak to amazing groups of people at conferences
- it’s opened up great opportunities to meet and partner with some very smart people
- it’s helped me to develop skills that I’d never have imagined having
In all it’s been an amazing ride so far and I feel very lucky to be where I’m at.
However over the years as my blogs have grown and as I’ve benefited from blogging I’ve also felt a growing responsibility to use what I’m building to give something back and to make the world a better place.
I guess at a base level – the blogs that I run aim to help people by teaching them (all my blogs are ‘how to’ in nature). Also as a family we do support a variety of charities with the money we earn from blogging – however I’ve always wondered if there are other ways to leverage the success of a blog to make a bigger difference in the world.
In previous years I’ve raised money through doing blog-a-thons (I blogged something every 5 minutes for 24 hours on two occasions) or other types of fund raising. I’ve also participated in events like ‘blog action day’ (where bloggers all blog on an issue like poverty or the environment) – but I’ve always wondered if there could be more?
I’ve seen some bloggers offer to give percentages of sales of their products to charities and support different causes through their blogs – but I’d be interested to hear more stories of how bloggers can ‘give back’ and make a difference in the world?
One of the things I’m currently exploring is doing a trip with a Not for Profit organisation to witness the work that they’re doing in a developing country (it looks like I’ll be heading to Africa in February), and to report on that to my network – but I’d love to hear your ideas on how bloggers can (and do) make a difference through their blogs.
What do you do to give something back? How have you seen others give back?
