Social Media Guidelines: Ethical, Safe and Effective Practical Standards

The goal of AFP's Social Media Guidelines is to both provide fundraising professionals guidance on social media for their workplace and to establish guidelines for Organization leaders to use with their staff, consultants, volunteers, members, stakeholders and affiliated groups. This document also covers the conduct and expectations of the public when participating in an organization's social media or social networking platforms.

Social media is an area that moves quickly and can be challenging, so it is important for Organizations such as AFP to provide resources for members and volunteer leaders. It's also crucial to support ethical guidelines that already exist with details and applications in the digital age. As the organization that links all of the different disciplines of fundraising, AFP is working to bring together the various pieces of this puzzle and provide a comprehensive view of social media.

At present, we offer the Guidelines in both a quick one-page Summary for easy reference, as well as the full document with examples. Our goal is to eventually develop an interactive version of the Guidelines with links and other dynamic features.

To that end, and given the fluid nature of the web and social media, we intend to regularly update and improve the Social Media Guidelines. We therefore ask those interested or who have some insight to share to send us your thoughts, comments and examples so that we can incorporate them into the document. Please send your information to webmaster@afpglobal.org with the subject "Social Media Guidelines."

Thank you. For more information about AFP's social media presence and efforts, please visit the AFP Online Communities page.