The John Wallis Foundation has launched a new website, jwf.org.au. Members of the Publicity and Communications Committee, Martin Allen, Liz McAloon and Corrie van den Bosch have been creating this website, learning the intricacies of it in the process.
Using WordPress for our website creation enables the Foundation to send blogs, and also connect from the website to Facebook and Twitter. But to use these facilities the team needed to learn about these social media platforms in order to make positive use of them. Catholic Social Services Victoria recently ran a workshop for not-for-profit organisations. Martin, Liz and Corrie attended. They were introduced not only to ways to use social media effectively, but also the value of social media for communicating who we are and the focus of JWF our mission. They also gained a better understanding on which social media is most useful for which specific audience.
Besides being introduced to Facebook, Twitter and Link-in, the workshop also gave time to the ethics of responsible use of social media. The respect with which an organisation posts material on these media is as important for conveying the ethos of the organisation as the content of the message. This includes matters of privacy and permissions, particularly in the use of photos and movie clips.
The final speaker of the seminar was Father Frank Brennan, CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia. He spoke on the potential of social media for communicating the “universal message of mercy”. He also posed the challenge: “If we are to be the users of social media, communicating a Gospel of mercy, could I suggest that you ask ‘What sort of interior space do we want to have ourselves and do we then want to be able to communicate as users of social media?’” His message is well worth hearing.