According to the latest research, charities are far more likely than their counterparts in the private or public sectors to use social networking sites like Facebook for learning and development use.

The research, by Towards Maturity, highlights the fact that the Third Sector has been last out of the starting blocks when it comes to getting to grips with using learning technologies - which is not surprising given the commitment that charities make to spending grant money, legacies, and donations on front line services, rather than on IT infrastructure.

"Charities may be using antiquated hardware, but they are leading the way when it comes to harnessing the blueprint of social media for learning and organisational use", said Martin Baker, who has been mentoring eLearning in the Third Sector for almost ten years.

"What those in L&D in the Third Sector have become expert at is thinking creatively, implementing learning, and developing programmes on a shoestring. In the current economic climate, there are definitely lessons that the private and public sector can learn from what charities are doing."

Amongst the members of the Charity Learning Consortium, for example, VSO is using social networking really imaginatively, with a moderated discussion forum helping to prepare its UK volunteers. VSO's vision is to eventually roll this out globally, and I know that other charities are keeping a keen eye on how the forum is progressing.

Here is a summary of the social networking results from the Towards Maturity survey.
Percentages of organisations that:

• use social networking for learning: 34% of not-for-profits; 22% of public organisations; 19% of private companies.
• allow unrestricted access to social media: 63% of not-for-profits; 34% of public organisations; 54% of private companies, rising to 75% in IT and telecoms.
• encourage communication amongst learners: 43% of not-for-profits; 38% of public organisations; 43% of private companies.
• have established good links with IT departments: 57% of not-for-profits; 54% of public organisations; 57% of private companies.

Statistics taken from Accelerating Performance, the Towards Maturity benchmarking report 2010-11.