Facebook wants to make it easier for non-profits to seek donations through the social networking platform. The company has now come up with a new feature designed to make fundraising that much easier and has also improved the Donate button — Facebook’s first step towards making non-profits earn donations easily.
The latest addition towards helping NPOs is a new fundraising page that is independent of the NGO’s official page. On this page, non-profits can reach out to newer audiences, and evoke the curiosity of existing supporters through innovative story telling that grips the attention of the visitors.
The feature is still in its testing stage and in order to practically test it out, Facebook has partnered with close to 37 organizations including National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the World Wildlife fund to test the feature.
Today we’re testing fundraisers – a new tool – and improving our Donate button, to allow people to donate to charities without leaving Facebook. We hope these features help non-profits reach new supporters, engage their community and get the valuable funding they need to continue their good work.
stated Naomi Gleit, VP of Product Management.
For a non-profit to seek benefits through this feature, first they have to set up page aimed towards a particular campaign. On this page the organisation can upload photos, videos and content related to the campaign to promote and collect donations.
Apart from this soon to be launched feature, Facebook has also introduced an improved version of the Donate button. Now the Donate button is not confined only to a page, instead, it now gets included in both posts as well as the pages.
If the visitor do proceed with the donation, they don’t have to leave the page. Facebook now keeps the users in the same page without redirecting them to an external link where the transaction takes place.
It is speculated that Facebook might release the new fundraising page tool by early next year, in the midst of the 2016 US elections.
In 2013, we first tested different ways for non-profits to fundraise on Facebook. As a company we have also partnered with organizations to create donation campaigns after major natural disasters, like the Nepal earthquake. And we hope these new tools will help these groups do even more.
added Gleit
