Over the past two years, Fellowship of Reconciliation has been taking part in the technology revolution which is increasingly shaping the charity, campaigning and student sectors, by seeking to keep its finger on the pulse of new media. With others across the world, we closely followed President Obama’s utilisation of new media in his election campaign, and were greatly impressed with the results. Through utilising a range of social or new media, organisations are hoping to engage new and present members to inspire them into taking further action. This revolution comes in many forms: Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and MySpace among others. Based around social networking and interaction, new media is open for anyone, anywhere in the world and has potential to reach greater audiences and tap into the increasing popularity of e-campaigning.

Such is the success of such programmes, groups which explore how to use this technology to their full advantage, such as FairSay and their e-campaigning forum, have become leaders in the field. The E-Campaigning Forum is a network through which people can ask questions, share knowledge and learn about technologies as they develop, and it can boast of many prestigious members.

Like many organisations, FoR has embraced many of these new media forums within its work. The ‘Called to be Peacemakers’ Facebook group was launched in 2007 and is now widely used by the Young Peacemakers Network and is an important part of attracting new members to the organisation.

In October last year FoR created the Stories of Peace blog when four members travelled to Palestine and Israel for a two week delegation, contributing to the blog before, during and after their return. We found it was a powerful and useful tool, allowing news of our activities to reach a large number of people easily in a short space of time.

And finally FoR has just launched a Called2bPeacemakers account on Twitter!!! At the moment this is very much an experiment and we would very much like to receive comments and suggestions for its uses. And for those of us who need a little help getting a grasp on twitter, help is close at hand here.

As always there is more we can do, and more information to convey, but we hope using new media in this way to enhance our work will be of benefit to our members. If you have any comments about any of them, or would like to contribute in any way we’d love to hear from you so please email.