2009 July | Dan Mason's media and learning blog

Blogging first steps for small charities and fundraisers

Published: July 22, 2009

Jo Hendry has just cycled 230 miles from the top to bottom of Wales to raise money for the charity she works for, Crossroads in the Vale.

She’s not a Twitter, Facebook or social media addict and she’s never dared look under the bonnet of a website.

Now she’s a confident blogger whose Wheels across Wales site played a key role in raising the profile of her challenge and charity, welcomed scores of comments from supporters and helped raise well over £3,000. Apart from an investment in time and enthusiasm, the project cost precisely £0.

So what could other small non-profit organisations or individual fundraisers learn from Jo’s experience?

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The Printed Blog is dead. Here’s to have-a-go hero Karp

Published: July 8, 2009

The Printed Blog is no more. After six months, 80,000 print copies and 100,000 downloads, founder Joshua Karp has pulled the plug on the world’s first newspaper based exclusively on blogs and user-generated content.

Despite “signifcant personal investment”, the project simply ran out of money. But, says, Karp: “I may be nuts, but I have zero regrets.”

I don’t think Karp is mad – I think he’s a hero. And he’s exactly the sort of person who will define the boundaries of tomorrow’s local media by having a big idea and the balls to see it through.

In a lengthy and heartfelt goodbye on his blog, Joshua also runs through the lessons he’s learned. Far from acting as a warning to other have-a-go heroes, they should serve as inspiration.

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Jo makes her stand on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth

Published: July 6, 2009

I recently wrote a joyful post about self-styled “itinerant creative person” Jo Roberts. She’s the artist leading the Corby Press project … helping Corby launch its new multi-million swimming pool complex with posters made by community groups using blocks of wooden type.

She was also over the moon when I last spoke to her, having just bought a 1866 Albion printing press weighing 17cwt. A woman who like to makes an impression, clearly.

So it came as no great surpirse to learn she is taking part in Antony Gormley’s astonshishing One & Other project in Trafalgar Square. This is the brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT project that will see a different person (chosen at random from around 16,000 applicants) take their place on the empty fourth plinth every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days without a break.

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