Bertie Bosrédon (pictured), head of new media at Breast Cancer Care, explained how the organisation had significantly invested in new media innovations over the past two and half years.

Part of the process included empowering editors to learn podcasting and video skills, with a view to creating compelling new content, which can then be distributed through the charities' own website as well the likes of iTunes and YouTube. 

“It is important we listen to the needs of our audience,” said Bosrédon, using the beleaguered music industry as an example of what can happen to a sector that does not adapt quickly enough online [worldwide music sales hit their lowest level since 1985 this week according to the IFPI].

“Charities need to accept the fact that people will redistribute their content, so let’s empower them to do it and make it easier,” he said.

Dorothea Arndt, new media manager at British Red Cross, agreed that social media sites were now a key tool in reaching and engaging with potential supporters, but said the organisation tried to outsource skills to external agencies wherever possible, instead of developing them in-house.

For an organisation with 30,000 volunteers, 3,000 staff and a turnover of £40 million, outsourcing was said to make more sense logistically. The actual cost to create a Bebo page was said to be minimal, although Arndt said real-time moderators were necessary when dealing with particularly sensitive issues, like its HIV awareness campaign.

“We had some 200,000 profile views but one out of 20 posts were incredibly discriminating so we had to pre-moderate. It is a testament to Bebo that we were able to do that with them,” she said.

Meanwhile Rob Purdie, a project consultant who specialises in work for not-for-profit organisations, noted that Oxfam has had “considerable success” with social forums without moderating them, adding “communities often tend to moderate themselves quite well”.

The growing role of social media and other online activity was also recognised by Matt Connolly, strategy director of Enable. “For the first time we are noticing digital being embraced early on in campaigns, instead of just a nice bolt on,” he said.

“There has been a definite shift in budgets towards digital.”

As budgets and fundraising activities are squeezed by depressed financial markets, charities are said to be looking towards digital communications for better accountability and return on investment (ROI).

All registered charities in the UK can apply for Google grants, reminded Bosrédon, who also advised those within the sector to stop working in silos and start to innovate across different parts of the business. 

Purdie pointed to ‘open source’ systems like Druple that allow charities to adapt and develop shared resources such as content management systems as a good way of removing many of the costs to entry.

Arndt stressed the importance of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM), commenting: “If you have a small charity, you have a duty of care to invest in search engine optimisation. Yes, it takes time, we’ve spent more than 18 months working on it, but it has already enabled us to punch well above our weight.”

Towards the end of the session Connolly said: “The digital world is booming for us, like the dotcom years all over again. We are seeing all this money being poured into digital.”

Arif Durrani is news editor at mad.co.uk.