Social media strategy for Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
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Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) is a Quaker-led grant-making trust which supports people who address the root causes of conflict and injustice. As a charity led by Quaker values, JRCT had been hesitant to adopt a social media strategy, and had become vulnerable to critical media coverage.
The goal of this project was to develop JRCT’s online presence and activity to strengthen JRCT’s reputation with key audiences, support its grantees, and increase the variety of funding applications.
I was responsible for the day-to-day management of JRCT’s social media, including planning content, sourcing images, writing copy, and monitoring performance.
I conducted a social media evaluation to gain a better understanding of JRCT’s existing followers, content performance, challenges, and opportunities. I used data from grantee surveys and spoke to other team members to understand their understanding of and engagement with the comms team. I looked to similar funders and researched their approach to social media.
Using all of the data from my evaluation, I developed a social media strategy for JRCT, including a content plan and SMART goals to measure performance.
I identified content types that would be useful, relevant, and engaging to JRCT’s target audience. These included job round-ups, grantee profiles, and content that shared more about JRCT and the grantmaking process.
I designed templates to strengthen the visual identity of JRCT on social media in order to strengthen JRCT’s reputation. This also enabled posts to be designed more quickly when needed.
Within the first quarter since initiating the new social media strategy, the number of impressions on JRCT’s three social media accounts more than quadrupled, and follower numbers increased by over 1.4k, whilst maintaining a steady engagement rate across platforms.
Over two years of continuing to monitor performance and adjust strategy as needed, I increased JRCT’s follower numbers significantly across three platforms. In particular, on LinkedIn, a key platform for JRCT, I successfully increased their follower numbers from 1.5k to 14.9k. Alongside this rapid growth, I was able to maintain an average engagement rate of 5 - 7% across platforms.
The grantmaking team fed back that they noted an increase in the strength and variety of applications, and there was a noted increase in grantees approaching JRCT for support in promoting their work. Previously, we may have received one or two requests per month; this has increased to receiving sometimes more than ten requests per month. These were key indicators that JRCT’s social media strategy was serving the organisational goals as planned.