Global Warming! Health Care Reform! Immigration! These are all hot button issues that are at the core of several nonprofit organizations’ missions. When the public Googles these search terms (and many other nonprofit related search terms), guess what pops up as one of the first few results? A Wikipedia entry.
Just recently the National Institute of Health launched a new initiative to encourage their scientists to edit or start new Wikipedia entries on their area of expertise to ensure that the correct information on health issues is cited. “Wikipedia articles (there are more than 2.9 million of them in English) can be initiated and edited by anyone who can access the website. Quality is informally monitored by fellow users, who can make corrections and change the text freely. All information that is posted is supposed to include citations so a reader can check the primary sources of the data,” a Washington Post article stated.
This got me thinking. How many nonprofits encourage their own staff to regularly edit and start new entries on Wikipedia about the issues they work on? I suspect not too many. Nonprofits should view Wikipedia as an excellent educational outlet to cite key facts about issues. By editing and starting an entry, your nonprofit staff gets to help frame the issues for Wikipedia readers and educate them. Note, when editing entries make sure you include accurate citations. If the edit is considered "controversial" consider tagging it with "request edit" to encourage Wikipedia users to review it. It's also important to remember that the community frowns up entries that are used to "get the word out" or may appear promotional or propaganda like.
Through education your organization can create a more informed populous informed by facts that may have been omitted from previous entries.