Facebook launched a fundraising tool back in 2016 to allow users to create personal fundraisers for 501c3 nonprofits verified by the company itself. The feature enabled users and their friends to donate money to these organizations from within the social network itself so they didn’t need to visit an external site for the purpose. Facebook has since expanded the fundraising feature and has now announced that it has been used to raise over $1 billion.
Facebook later allowed users to raise funds for personal needs through this feature as well. It has also removed transaction fees for nonprofit fundraisers in addition to removing the platform fee for personal fundraisers. More than 20 million people have either donated or started a fundraiser on Facebook. There are now over one million nonprofits in 19 countries that can receive donations directly through Facebook.
The social network has announced that more than a billion dollars have been raised on Facebook for nonprofit and personal causes. It’s now expanding the nonprofit fundraising tools to Australia and Canada.
It also announced that for Giving Tuesday on November 27th, 2018, it will be matching donations up to a total of $7 million for all U.S.-backed nonprofit fundraisers happening on Facebook that day with its partner PayPal.