After announcing the first trial of their new personal fundraising option in March, Facebook's now making the tool available to all US-based users, enabling more people to raise money for personal causes via The Social Network.
As outlined in the video, now, if you have a personal cause you want to promote, you can create a Page to raise funds for it, where people will be able to donate via secure payments without leaving Facebook. Once they've donated, they'll also be able to forward your message to more people, helping to generate wider awareness of your campaign.
Eligible users will be able to use the option to raise money for any of the following categories:
- Education: such as tuition, books or classroom supplies
- Medical: such as medical procedures, treatments or injuries
- Pet Medical: such as veterinary procedures, treatments or injuries
- Crisis Relief: such as public crises or natural disasters
- Personal Emergency: such as a house fire, theft or car accident
- Funeral and Loss: such as burial expenses or living costs after losing a loved one
- Sports: such as equipment, competitions or team fees
- Community: such as neighborhood services, community improvements or environmental improvements
Fundraising on Facebook can be a great way to build momentum around a cause, as each action notifies other people in your network. So if you see all of your friends have donated to 'Jack's dental surgery fund', there'll be a level of implied peer pressure on you to do the same (Facebook found similar peer effect inspired more people vote in the 2010 US Congressional Election).
To start your own fundraiser Page, you can follow these steps:
- On mobile, tap the menu icon and select Fundraisers, or on desktop, go to facebook.com/fundraisers
- Choose to raise money for a Friend, Yourself or Someone or Something Not on Facebook
- Give your fundraiser a title and compelling story, and start raising money
Once you create your campaign, Facebook will review and approve/deny your cause within 24 hours.
"Personal fundraisers are available on all devices, and have a 6.9% + $0.30 fee that goes to payment processing, fundraiser vetting, and security and fraud protection. Facebook's goal is to create a platform for good that's sustainable over the long-term, and not to make a profit from our charitable giving tools."
As noted, given the ubiquity of Facebook, the platform's a great option for fundraisers as it can help boost awareness of causes through charitable actions. And as research has shown, a significant percentage of Facebook users share content to reinforce a certain image of themselves or make themselves look good, which charitable giving can definitely do. This gives the platform additional benefit in terms of spreading the word - it makes sense to utilize that to benefit your charitable campaign.