Social media is on foundations’ minds. The social media session, which took place at the 21st EFC AGA and Conference on 2 June, drew so many delegates that our calmly panicked staff had to remove the back wall of the room to open up the adjacent space to accommodate the unexpected wave of people.

Thanks to those delegates who helped us bring in all those extra chairs! James Ketchell, the social media guru of the Charities Aid Foundation, moderated the session, which included presentations from Daniel Ben-Horin of Techsoup Global, Filiz Bikmen Bugay of the Sabanci Foundation, and Maribel Königer of the Erste Stiftung.

Daniel, as founder of Techsoup, emphasised that social media is not a tool but something that has fundamentally changed the way we work. He encouraged people not to be afraid to go for it with social media, “You can stumble if you’re humble. This is an arena where you can make mistakes.”

Filiz walked us through her foundation’s programme, “Turkey’s Changemakers”, a programme that used television to highlight Turkish citizens who were making a difference. Unexpectedly, social media turned out to be central to this project’s success and took it in totally unforeseen directions. As Filiz put it, “the project went viral”, taking on a life of its own through social media.

Maribel shared with us her foundation’s social media strategy, and offered the following tip: make it personal. She found that streaming content from the foundation’s website put an official pall over the message, making people hesitant to respond and engage in debate. So she encouraged her staff to get out there on social media networks and make the foundation’s communications a bit more human.