Jason Z over at Democracy in Action has a great post today about RSS and how it works. (If you're loking for more info, we just did a great webinar with Alex Samuels of Social Signal.) Jason says in his post:

It's come to the point where nonprofit staff who aren't using RSS aren't really doing all of their job.

Jason - I agree wholeheartedly.

But what I think goes unsaid in his post is this: organizations that aren't using RSS are operating on the old model. The old model works like this. I will call this the "Let them Eat Cake" model:

Let Them Eat Cake

The premise behind this model is that we, as nonprofits, are special messengers. We have IMPORTANT information that NO ONE can get ANYWHERE else. You want to know what's up with the baby seals in Alaska? You come to OUR SITE. (This probably has very little to do with the actual context of the Let Them Eat Cake event, but I don't care. It made for great stick figure art). And while you're at it, give us money. After all, we are the ONLY place you can get this information, and we're the only ones who can tell you what to do about it.

The problem with this premise is that it just doesn't hold true anymore. The revolution in online publishing has meant that there are literally hundreds of thousands of web pages about baby seals. So you need a new model. One where you provide the cake recipe, and let your constituents do the baking - preferrably with their choice of kitchens and sous chefs.

And that's what RSS is all about. It allows us to mashup content from everwhere and let our stakeholders create their own experience with it.