January 02, 2017

There is abundant information online about every conceivable topic, grant writing and philanthropy included.  One way to stay abreast of nonprofit-related news without overwhelming your inbox is to use a content aggregator that collects relevant articles and blog posts from around the Web. Some of the services will email you a consolidated list of relevant articles weekly, or sometimes daily, while others provide tailored content through their website.

In addition to making your inbox more manageable, content aggregators also help you discover new content related to philanthropy from both mainstream media and lesser-known sources.

FOUR RESOURCES FOR FINDING & STORING ONLINE CONTENT

• Feedly:  Feedly collects your favorite blogs, YouTube channels, and website content into a single view. You can also use Feedly to discover new sites that publish information relevant to your interests. Feedly has a free basic service and two premium options.

• Medium: Medium is hard to describe. Essentially it is a blogging platform (see this article from The Atlantic to learn more about what it is). Through Medium you can find articles on grant writing and philanthropy and topics such as poverty and social justice.
   

• ContentGems: ContentGems scans content from respected online sources and presents you with a list of relevant and current articles based your interests. You can link any website with an RSS feed to your ContentGems account as well as use the service to monitor any Twitter account. The company offers a free basic account and two premium accounts.
   

• Pocket: Pocket is a little different than the others in that it is primarily a place to save content you find on the Web rather than a service to discover content.  When you come across a video or article of interest, you click on the Pocket browser extension to save the content to your Pocket account. You can also email links to articles and videos to your Pocket account. To help you sort through your saved content, Pocket has a tagging feature similar to Evernote. Although Pocket is primarily about helping you save content you find as you browse the Web, Pocket also recommends articles of general interest, which it sends in a weekly email. Pocket makes it very easy to store content for later reference and more in-depth reading. Pocket offers a free basic service and a premium account option.

NEWS RESOURCES FOR NONPROFITS AND NGOS

If you'd rather visit a couple of websites periodically than receive content from a large number of sites, three resources to check out are Devex (global news and NGO focused),  The Chronicle of Philanthropy (U.S. focused, with coverage of global philanthropy),  and The Guardian (global news with a dedicated section on global development).

ONLINE FORUMS

Online forums and community bulletin boards are other good resources for information about philanthropy-related topics, with the added benefit that they allow you to post questions for community response.

If you are interested in participating in an online forum where you can ask questions and provide answers to fellow grant seekers, one site to check out is Reddit. Reddit is an online bulletin board where registered users can post content and ask questions. Entries are organized by topic areas called "subreddits." Two subreddits of interest to the nonprofit community are "nonprofit"  and  "grant writing."