Social media foundations: a strategy for small charities and busy teams

Small charity staff often manage social media on top of fundraising, service delivery, admin, events, volunteer support and everything else that lands on their desk. When it’s not your main job, keeping up with Instagram changes, TikTok trends and falling organic reach can feel impossible.

This online course is designed in partnership with Ross McCulloch, Third Sector Lab, to help you pause, cut through the noise and build a simple approach that fits around the rest of your work.

The aim of this course is to provide you with realistic tools to work with, and relatable examples from real small charities. You’ll leave with a focused, manageable strategy, one that helps you use social media effectively without adding more to your overflowing to-do list.

Through a blend of breakout sessions and individual tasks you will learn:

• How to choose the right platforms and stop spreading yourself too thinly
• Ways to understand your audience and design content around their needs
• How to approach short-form video without high production demands
• Practical, safe ways to use AI to support planning and content variation
• How to focus on work that contributes to organisational goals
• A realistic, repeatable workflow - less work, more impact

During this active and participatory course, we’ll focus on what actually matters in 2026: Instagram pushing Reels, TikTok becoming essential for reaching younger audiences, and how AI can genuinely save you time with planning and content ideas.

Instead of trying to do everything, you’ll learn how to make confident decisions about where to show up - and where you can safely stop.

Guided by Ross and class discussions, you’ll examine:

• Choosing the right channels for your audiences (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook)
• Where using short-form video in a quick, achievable way can yield results
• A “less is more” approach that reduces workload and boosts impact
• Creating content based on real user needs, not pressure or guesswork
• Using AI as a practical helper, not an extra job
• Building a simple weekly workflow, strategy and policy you can actually stick to

This course is for anyone with a communications or marketing remit, whether it’s your full-time job or one of the many hats you wear. It is ideal for communications officers, charity managers, or fundraisers who want to start using social media strategically to achieve organisational goals.

There are no formal entry requirements.

This online course takes place on the afternoon of 27 May from 1pm to 4pm.