The Ad hoc Communications Committee reported at the May meeting with attention to business with an update on the meeting Facebook page, halfway through the six-month experiment begun in February. The report included an announcement that the committee is considering participating in the FGC Digital Outreach training and that we would bring a recommendation to meeting for business for approval in July. This article provides more information about the training program and the ads used. If you are interested being involved with the RFM Facebook page, participating in the training, or have questions or comments, contact Jim Thoroman or Tracey Cain.

An overview of the FGC Digital Outreach training and links to the website of Emily Provance, recent Interim Young Adult Field Secretary for New York Yearly Meeting, are on the FGC website at http://www.fgcquaker.org/. Search for “digital outreach” to go to page A Digital Outreach Opportunity for Quaker Meetings. There is a link to Emily’s blog, which includes links to detailed reports about the social media outreach ads outreach experiments, including the training we would participate in and pictures of the ads used.

For those who cannot or prefer not to go online, here is the description from the FGC website page: Emily Provance, a Friend who is called to the ministry of outreach and a member of Fifteenth Street Monthly Meeting, describes social media as “an unprecedented platform for witness and ministry.” More Quaker meetings are turning to social platforms like Facebook to encourage newcomers and seekers to discover their spiritual communities.

Is your Quaker meeting interested in learning social media-based outreach tools on Facebook? Register for FGC’s Digital Outreach training, facilitated by Emily Provance. Over the course of 60 days, individual Quaker meetings will learn how to build a meaningful overall social media presence through weekly lessons and opportunities to put them into action. The program includes a fifty-day, query-based Facebook ad campaign targeted to seekers in your geographic area, managed by the facilitator.

Samples of ads used in the outreach training (from Phase 1 report) are reported in the 7th month (July) RFM newsletter.