200 charities enjoy training at Facebook: ‘Today has been fabulous’

91% of non-profits in Europe are using Facebook and a growing number are also using Instagram to engage with their audiences. Both platforms provide charities with vast opportunities to connect, communicate, campaign and fundraise. But with so many platforms and the rapid pace of change, it can be difficult for charities to know where to focus their resources.

This is why Media Trust teamed up with Facebook Blueprint to offer immersive training days to nearly 200 charity professionals last Tuesday and Wednesday at Facebook’s London HQ.

With day one pitched at beginners and day two aimed at an intermediate level, the training was specially designed to equip charities with the knowledge and skills to build real strategies and run effective advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.

Training led by Facebook experts

Each day, Facebook’s experts guided the charities through a series of modules. Then it was time for attendees to put their learning to the test as they worked in teams to develop a media plan around a charity brief which they pitched to a judging panel of Facebookers.

The Facebook team were clearly passionate about the power of the platform to effect positive change. They fielded a huge team of presenters and mentors from across the organisation, including members of Facebook’s social good team who have raised over $1 billion for good causes.

Media Trust CEO Su-Mei Thompson, who spoke at both events, emphasised the need for charities to enhance their digital capabilities or risk getting left behind. Referring to last year’s Charity Digital Skills Report which highlighted that nearly half of UK charities don’t have a digital strategy, Su-Mei said: “ The report revealed some worrying trends for the sector. In addition, from our own Digital Skills programme which has trained over 1000 charity professionals since June 2018, we know how under-resourced most non-profits are when it comes to marketing, comms and digital.”

She continued: “Today’s training with has been structured to address many of these challenges and we’re grateful to Facebook for collaborating with us to deliver these sessions.”

Creative collaboration

Charity attendee, Emma Pereira from Save The Rhino felt that the training gave her both a chance to learn directly from Facebook experts as well as to get out of the office and brainstorm with charity sector peers: “Today has been fabulous. It’s been brilliant to be at Facebook and the training has been really interesting. We did a lot of group work and it was helpful to get a team of creative minds together, go through what we’ve been learning all day and put it into practice.”

The Facebook Blueprint Immersion Days form part of a wider training collaboration between Media Trust and Facebook which includes a specially curated eLearning Pathway for charities to enhance their Facebook and Instagram knowledge and skills.