Making another major stride in its contributions to the containment of coronavirus pandemic, Facebook has announced a fundraising platform for coronavirus-related donations in India. The feature will bring donating to overs 70 charities to the fingertips of its largely home-bound user base.
Facebook has been working to provide accurate coronavirus-related information, prevent spread of misinformation, and support local communities, businesses and charities. With reference to the newly launched platform, Ajit Mohan vice president and managing director Facebook India said “communities around the country need help. Today, with the launch of Facebook Fundraisers, we are making a particular push towards everyone can contribute to relief efforts.”
Through the platform, users can set up pages dedicated to a cause and rally people around a fundraising target. 100% of the donations raised through Facebook will go to charities and users will be able to donate to non-profit fundraisers such as Goonj, The Akshayapatra Foundation, Helpage India among others.
While charities and funds are being set up, fraudulence has followed these relief efforts. Reports recently uncovered fictitious UPI IDs that were being circulated on the pretext of the PM CARES fund. To counter fraudulence, Facebook has partnered up with GiveIndia- a trusted charitable platform. In addition to this, to be registered, the charity or fundraiser has to meet a certain criteria which includes a long list of documentations. The organisation then has to be enrolled through Facebook Payments.
Donations to registered charities will be facilitated through the payment solutions provider RazorPay.
The feature also provides the option of donating to a personal fundraiser, where donations are transferred to the bank account of the creator of the page. Although donations are possible, the option to create a personal fundraiser is currently unavailable in India.
To encourage the user base to donate, Facebook also announced a ‘social-for-good live-a-thon’, a series of live events featuring over 150 celebrities, creators and publishers through their personal account. The week-long event starting April 24th represents over 350 million followers cumulatively.
This step towards covid-19 relief comes after the social media giant recently expanded its community help hub, launching it on a global scale for the very first time. The feature was first launched in 2017 and helped keep users connected after manmade, accidental and natural disasters. The covid-19 community help hub of the feature allowed people request or offer help to those affected and as well as donate to non- profit fundraisers.
