Facebook looks set to take on crowdfunding with Fundraisers tool

Facebook has launched Fundraisers, a dedicated place to raise funds from a non-profit’s Page for a specific campaign. The company says Fundraisers go beyond its usual Donate Button which it has deployed in the past during disasters.

Facebook’s 1.5 billion monthly users, when equated to a country are a few million higher than China’s population, making Facebook the biggest country in the world. What happens then when a country of that magnitude takes on a smaller country, said smaller country being Kickstarter. We will have the answer to this question once Facebook’s fundraisers tool matures, for now it is only a concept.

“With more than 150 million people around the world connected to a cause, Facebook is a global community of volunteers, donors and activists coming together to make the world a better place” wrote Naomi Gleit, VP of Product Management at Facebook.

This is not the first time that Facebook has raised money for organisations. The Donate Button has however always been centered on disaster reliefs, sending the donations to organisation that then distribute it. What is different about the fundraisers is that organisations can set up their own fundraising efforts and administer them.

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The company says that this effort is to take advantage of the fact that its community is always ready to effect change.

With this new tool, users will be able to make donations to charities without leaving Facebook. This feature, according to the company, has been built to allow non-profits to reach new supporters, engage them and obtain funding.

Employing a similar functionality as Kickstarter, Fundraisers allows non-profits to upload a video explaining their intentions, getting people to invest, visibly track progress towards their goal and collect donations for their specific campaign.

“People will be able to donate in just a few taps and share their donations with friends. All shared posts will also include a Donate button, making it easy for anyone who sees it to donate and join the fundraiser directly from News Feed” wrote Naomi Gleit, VP of Product Management at Facebook.

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Facebook also announced that it has made some improvements to its Donate Button. From now on, it will be available on Pages and posts. This will, Facebook hopes, give Pages a consistent place to collect donations and users an easy way to donate directly from News Feed.

To test Fundraisers, Facebook has partnered up with 37 organisations. These included Mercy Corps, National Multiple Sclerosis Society and World Wildlife Fund. Organizations that are interested in using these tools can sign up to learn more.