Concern and our online community

As part of our efforts to highlight Concern's work to as wide an audience as possible, and to ensure our current and next generation of supporters are kept up to date with where their donations are going, we operate across a number of social media platforms.

You'll find us on Instagram, on Facebook, on TikTok, on YouTube and on LinkedIn  on Bluesky, on Threads, and on X, where we do our best to amplify the work that we do to tackle extreme poverty and respond to humanitarian crises in over 24 countries around the world, and to share the experiences of people who are living in the most difficult of circumstances.

Building these communities allows us to provide a voice for people who are struggling to be heard. It also allows us to be as transparent as possible in our work, and to maintain dialogue with anyone who wishes to contribute towards our work - whether it's volunteering, applying for jobs in Concern, or making a donation. 

We've been working with people in the world's most vulnerable communities since 1968, when John and Kay O'Loughlin Kennedy founded Africa Concern in response to famine in the breakaway province of Biafra in Nigeria.

Cut to 2026 and we are an organisation of more than 3,000 people, with a vision of a world where nobody lives in poverty, where everyone has access to a decent standard of living as well as the opportunity to live long, healthy and creative lives.

Built on the inspiration of our founders, and our long record of delivering effective programmes, our values reflect our history and our commitment to addressing extreme poverty in the most fragile countries. 

We are: 

• Community-led, listening to and building trust with communities to agree effective solutions to their needs. 
• Courageous in our programming in the most challenging contexts, going the extra mile to support those most in need.
• Committed to equality in all our work, strengthening our culture where those who work with Concern feel valued, safe, trusted and supported to thrive. 
• Collaborative in our approach by working with partners, peers and those who support and fund us.

You will find a full breakdown of our core values as an organisation here.

Our safeguarding policies at Concern aim to ensure that both our staff and the people we work with are protected at all times from abuse and exploitation.

We have a responsibility to ensure that our programme participants across the world feel safe and protected by the work that we do, and we put a particular focus on protecting women and girls, who are at greater risk of abuse and harassment. 

As an organisation, we explicitly condemn abusive or exploitative behaviour and, crucially for the purposes of this article, this duty of care extends to how we manage our communications and our online platforms - including social media. 

We appreciate every message you share with us - whether public or private - on our social platforms. We read them, take them seriously, and do our best to respond to genuine questions and feedback from our global community.

We monitor these channels on a daily basis and our responses are not generated by AI.

We also appreciate every positive comment that comes our way, every donation that comes in via our social media appeals, and if there is genuine negative feedback about anything posted online we can assure you that it's taken seriously. 

Transparency is foremost in our minds as an organisation - whether it's in regard to where your donations go, how the organisation operates from a financial perspective, and how we treat each other as colleagues and those who need our support.

There are cases, however, where we receive abusive or disruptive messaging and we have developed policies around that too. 

Our community standards state that we engage with thoughtful and discussions but personal attacks, insults and racist, abusive or inflammatory language will not be tolerated. Where possible, we reserve the right to hide or delete comments that breach these standards, and the right to ban or block anyone from our social media platforms who crosses the line into abusive, harmful or discriminatory rhetoric. Similarly, any comments that contain, promote, or rely on false or misleading information will be subject to the same standards. This includes claims that are demonstrably inaccurate, as well as content that uses factual information in a deceptive or misleading way, such as by taking facts, statistics, images, or quotations out of context, selectively presenting information, or omitting material context that would significantly alter understanding of the issue. 

We delete any comments that may compromise the safety of another person, while we respect the privacy of others and don't share personal details that are sent to us - either online or with anyone else in the organisation, unless permission is given in the latter case.

We also ensure that comments are kept to the relevant topic; any deviation from that may be removed.

These community standards allow us to maintain an inclusive environment online, one that fosters genuine debate and constructive discussions around Concern's work and the issues that shape it; and to create an open dialogue with supporters of our work, or anyone who is interested in learning more about us.