Dear Feminism2.0 community:
We’d like to invite you to blog at MomsRising.org. Founded in May of 2006, MomsRising is a rapidly-growing national and state-based netroots and grassroots organization working to build a truly family-friendly America to increase the economic security of all women and families. With over 150,000 members, we continue to grow each week by the hundreds to thousands. Our members are women with small-to-adult children, grandparents, stay-at-home-moms, working mothers, and people from rural and urban communities. We amplify our members’ voices via our outreaches that invite members to take action.
Why blog for MomsRising?
It’s a big audience. We had about 400,000 unique visitors to our website last year and 1.4 million page views. This is a healthy-sized audience that we are constantly working to grow.
It’s the right audience. 85 percent of our members are women, and 100 percent are people who’ve taken at least one action (and on average more than 3) on an issue they care about through our website.
We’ll carry your message beyond MomsRising.org. Over the last year, we have been growing our presence on social networks. So far, we’ve got 2,000 followers on Twitter and 4,500 supporters on Facebook Causes. We share MomsRising content, including your blog posts, on both of those. We recently discovered that 16% of MomsRising members have 100+ friends in their social networks, and 35% have over 20 friends — so you can expect us to be really focusing on growing those networks over the coming year, and encouraging our well-connected members to share MomsRising blog posts and actions with their friends.
We’ll listen to you. The MomsRising blog is an important part of who we are. But we don’t pretend to have it figured all out. We recently started a discussion list for MomsRising bloggers — over 80 contributors in total — to open up the conversation. When you start blogging for MomsRising, you’re part of the team. Through this group, MomsRising bloggers can share ideas about blog topics, news events, press releases, and whether we should be moving on an important issue. It’s an open line of communication to 80 like-minded bloggers and an organization of 150,000 moms-and-allies who care about making the world a better place for women and families.
What Should You Blog About?
As part of our mission to build a strong movement of people who care about mothers and families, MomsRising bloggers typically write about issues related to our platform:
M – Maternity/Paternity Leave (paid family leave to care for newborns and seriously ill family members).
O – Open, Flexible Work (flexible work arrangements to enable parents to do their paid jobs and family care work).
T – Television We Choose and Other After-School Programs (only a fraction of children have access to much-needed after-school programs; moreover, parents who use TV as their after-school care have too little control over programming choices).
H – Healthcare for All Kids (all children should be insured for health care needs).
E – Excellent Childcare (when compared to other industrialized nations, much of our childcare is sub-standard).
R – Realistic, Fair Wages (parents working full-time should be able to support their children, and mothers should earn equal pay for equal work).
S – Sick Days for All (Paid sick days to allow parents time to care for themselves and sick kids without loss of income).
Ideally your blogs would touch upon one of these topics or another that is related to them, for example, family economic security, maternal profiling, breastfeeding, wage discrimination, work-life fit, toxins in children’s products, and parenting. The ideal length of a blog is 600 words, though both shorter and longer posts are welcome. If you’d like some tips on how to write a good post, read "Don’t Read This Unless You Want Tips On How To Write A Good Blog." You are welcome to cross-post your blogs elsewhere.
Through the blogosphere we have the opportunity to influence public policy and cultural change that results in better opportunities and lives for women and children. We hope you’ll join us!
*If you’re interested in blogging at MomsRising, please send an email to Anita@MomsRising.org
Sincerely,
Kristin, Joan, Nanette, Anita, Dionna, Roz, and the MomsRising Team
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