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Work: British Heart Foundation Community Management Training

One of the UK's highest profile charities, British Heart Foundation is the nation's heart charity whose vision is a world where people don't die prematurely from heart disease. They aim to achieve this through pioneering research, vital prevention activity and ensuring quality care and support for everyone living with heart disease. The charity was founded in 1961 by a group of medical professionals wanting to fund extra research into the causes, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of heart and circulatory disease. 

We were commissioned by BHF in 2010 to develop a new online community space to enable them to engage more effectively with their donors, supporters and members, and whilst the technical implementation was in progress, we explored the skills within the organisation and found that a number of concerns existed. 

Many staff had little or no experience of engaging online using social media and expressed concern about how to handle misleading or inappropriate advice being posted into the community space. This conflicted with the need for Heart Helpline staff to support the new online community and the need for BHF to support, motivate and reward a team of community volunteers whilst maintaining their "friendly expert" voice in an online environment. 

The training

Our online training course is designed to help internal teams understand how best to support a site's Community Manager and all audience-facing members of the organisation, and what internal procedures and processes must be in place to support them once the community goes live. Lasting for three weeks in a 100% online environment, BHF staff learnt: 

  • The basics of online community
  • How to engage with community members in a constructive way for both the community and the organisation
  • The role of the community manager
  • The challenges of moderation
  • How to develop a social media policy giving staff guidelines and encouragement for listening and responding to community members
  • Confidence in talking with members online

Key Benefits

Training and personal development works most effectively when there are clear benefits for both the organisation and the delegates themselves. Our training delivers on both counts.

For the organisation

  • Spreading awareness of online conversations and community throughout the organisation
  • Spreading confidence and developing policies for representing the organisation in social media spaces
  • Assisting in the development of a stable and mature collaborative online community of members/customers
  • Improving the organisation's response to customer concerns
  • Improving management of the brand reputation online

For the delegates

  • Acquiring confidence in taking part in online conversations as an individual and finding an online voice
  • Acquiring confidence in representing the organisation within online conversations
  • Acquiring an understanding of the role of online community for an organisation
  • Contributing to the development of the organisation's policies with regard to social media and online community
  • Acquiring knowledge of the skills required for community management

Expertise

  • Community Training

Results

"This learning experience has encouraged me to look at more online communities and make comments - something I certainly wouldn't have done before.”

“Thanks for all this new learning. I have been motivated and have even opened a Twitter account!"

“It's important [our volunteers] feel supported and happy in their roles in the hope that they remain involved in the community on a long term basis."

"I have a huge amount admiration of the community manager… All the work you have to do, I had no idea, I did kind of think that there would be 4 or 5 people helping the community manager out!!"

“I think it is very difficult for people to pick up the phone and call the Helpline. They are brave and I think the same is probably true when people join or start in an online community. I want to feel welcome and not an 'outsider' so will try my best to welcome visitors to our site."

"A positive or friendly remark makes all the difference to how welcome people feel and with this in mind, we can try to set the tone for the online community to ensure people feel welcomed and supported."

“The brilliant thing about the community online is that it…will provide members with support on a different level, that being sympathy - where they can say, 'Yes I have been there'."

“The training has been a real eye opener for me.”

Feedback

The training has by far and away been the highlight of my week!

Roberto Kusabbi, Communities & Social Media Executive

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