Facebook New Feature To Help Charities Raise Money Online

Facebook's New Feature To Help Charities Raise Money Online.

Facebook Tech giant has come up with a new feature that can support nonprofits and charity organizations to raise money for the reasons they care about, the company said. Several months after the social network introduced a new “fundraiser” feature for nonprofits to save donations, Facebook declared it has extended the tool to individual users. 

The tool is now accessible to 1% of US user’s standard for new Facebook products in order to gather the response and make sure there are not any bugs but it will roll out to all US users in the coming weeks.

The company's "Social Good" team, which was also behind Safety Check, planned it that manner because people are more inclined to give money openly through Facebook. They also found that people tend to be more liberal if somebody they know requests for help using their personal stories or photos. The company already introduced a fundraising tool that organizations can use last year, but this one could compel more peoples to open their wallets.

Focusing on products meant at crisis response and charitable giving, the team now hopes to break down blocks and allow people to use the tools it is building.

"We had Facebook fundraising for nonprofits with International Medical Corps in Nepal and then last year... nonprofits could fundraise for themselves," Naomi Gleit, vice president of product management for social good at Facebook, said in a statement.

"But the real vision has always been people fundraising for nonprofits."

If you're wondering if Facebook gets a cut, well, it does get a small percentage of the total funds raised -- five percent, to be precise. Two percent goes near the costs related with examining nonprofits and fraud security, while the remaining three will go towards payment processing. Receivers will get 95 percent of whatever you raise.



The encouragement for the tool came from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which went viral in 2014. Facebook saw folks raising money and alertness, but the ALS Association said Facebook that it couldn't handle the volume of traffic to its website, nor could it receive international money.

Now, users will be able to contribute directly through Facebook or start their own campaigns.
"Before we actually disburse funds to them, depending on how much money it is, we will do some more quality control," Gleit said about the nonprofits overall.

"We just want to make sure there's no fraud, so there's an additional layer of vetting," Gheit added.

While only US users can create fundraisers, people around the world can donate.