Happy six month anniversary to Generous Matters

Excuse the self congratulations, but when I launched Generous Matters back on March 3, I wasn’t sure I would keep it up. Now here I am, six months as a blogger, with 89 posts to my credit, several waiting in the queue, and a slew more knocking around in my head. I am loving this blogging thing.

Credit (or blame, you choose) goes to Devin Thomas over at The Search for Piety and Obedience for starting me down this path. His reasoning: I speak in blogs, so I might as well write one. I also received encouragement early on from Scott Heintzelman (aka the Exuberant Accountant). He knows the power of the “like” button.

My hope for Generous Matters – that I would become more disciplined in writing about the issues that consume my life: fundraising, board work, stewardship, faithfulness, and generosity in all its forms — has been more than met.  Blogging has become an amazing source of intellectual stimulation and I’ve been surprised by how much I enjoy creating each new entry. Writing for Generous Matters is a treat I give myself at the end of the work day. It helps, of course, to know I have readers and occasional comments are frosting on the blog. There’s not much fun in simply talking to myself.

Of course, there have been surprises of a less pleasant kind – specifically, the difficulty of attracting a following for Generous Matters. The blogosphere is a crowded place, with more than 150 million of us vying for readers (17.5 million on WordPress alone). I shouldn’t be surprised (but I am) that some (ok, most) days, the ROI of time spent on my blog, measured by page views, is disappointingly meager. However, when gauged by the frequency with which I reference content from my blog in workshop presentations or in conversations with clients, Generous Matters is definitely a great investment of my time.

So I push on, doing the things I’m told will bring me new readers, while tamping down my envy of big number bloggers like Seth Godin, Beth Kantor, and Scot McKnight. Hope springs eternal. Maybe someday, one day, I’ll make it into the blogging big leagues.  And if I don’t, well, I’m having fun and learning a lot in the process.

Thanks for letting  me crow about my blogging experience.   I’ll be back on topic next time.