City Action

BLOG GUIDANCE

Food for thought - potential blog topics

Introduction

The City Action blog provides an opportunity for members of both the corporate and community sectors involved in employee volunteering and Corporate Community Involvement programmes to share their experiences, opinions and best practice ideas.

It is also an exciting opportunity for blog contributors to be a part of the 'web 2.0' phenomenon which aims to enhance online information sharing, collaboration and creativity amongst people or organisations with shared interests.

Please find below some guidelines on the blog, including an outline of how the service is managed and some tips to help you get started with writing your first blog posting.

Mission statement

To provide a forum for discussion for both the private and voluntary sectors to specifically focus on employee volunteering and Corporate Community Involvement, including the general subject of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Blog objective

To be primarily an information/awareness raising service about Current Corporate Community Involvement activities and CSR news generally.
To provide relevant commentary or opinion on current Corporate Community Involvement activities and CSR news generally.
To provide a forum for City firms and community organisations to openly discuss issues of cross sectoral partnerships and community engagement.
To avoid using the blog service purely as a medium for self or organisation-based promotion.

Disclaimer

The opinions on this weblog are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organisation or the City of London Corporation.

Blog management

The blog is hosted on the City Action's website and will include an RSS feed service to allow visitors to upload the City Action blog onto their news feed reader.
External contributors will send City Action their posting via an online form within the blog.
All blog postings should be no more than 300 words.
City Action will notify all external contributors of the date their posting is to be uploaded to the website and of any editorial changes.
City Action is responsible for moderating all blog postings and resulting comments.
Moderation and editorial changes to any blog posting or commentary will be minor, e.g. grammatical amendments. However, if the comment or posting contains inappropriate language, does not adhere to the blog mission statement or objectives, or exceeds the maximum word count, it will require further review before it is uploaded to the blog.
All external contributors have the right to remain anonymous when posting or commenting on the City Action blog.

Updating policy

The blog will be updated at least once per month with a new posting, either via an external contributor or via City Action.

'Top tips' for blog writing

Write for the benefit of your readers, think of your posting as an information store which readers can access and obtain rich, useful and valuable information. Ask the question "how is this helping the reader?"
Think about your writing style to ensure that the posting is accessible and informative to your readers.
Provide a snappy and eyecatching headline to make sure your posting is noticed.
Ensure your posting is informative by providing links or crediting the news articles, websites, other blogs etc you may mention.
Engage the reader by using humour and first-hand accounts where appropriate.
Have an opinion and do not be afraid to articulate it.
Choose a topic to discuss that you are passionate about.
Stay relevant to your chosen topic and avoid going off on a tangent.

Food for thought - potential blog topics

The impact and value of employee volunteering from a corporate or community perspective.
A comment on the results of a recent research paper/news article.
A discussion around the value of tracking and measuring volunteering in Corporate Community Involvement.
A comment on the impact the 'credit crunch' is having on employee volunteering from either a community or a corporate perspective.
The impact of the extended Companies Act (2007) on reporting environmental, employee, social and community matters which aims to promote responsible business behaviour.
What is employee volunteering? A discussion around the definitions of an 'employee volunteer' from a corporate or a community perspective.
The use of new technologies in promoting and recruiting employee volunteers for your programmes.
A discussion around the link between employee volunteering and learning and development goals.

For future blog ideas, please visit our Corporate Responsibility team's news reader pages which provide an overview of current CSR news/research and links to other blogs.

Examples of current CSR blogs

CASE STUDIES

Allianz Global Investors partners with St Luke's Centre to make an impact

Allianz Global Investors was seeking a new community organisation partner and City Action matched them with St Luke's Centre. Together, the two organisations are working on a variety of projects and making a real impact.

SThree and Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership develop employablity skills

SThree contributed to the work of Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership by supporting the development of employability skills of young people.