Launched in 2015, Facebook’s fundraising tools have raised over $3 billion for causes, so yes - they’re significant. They enable any verified charity to raise money on the social network in two ways:

1. placing Donate buttons in various places (including on the Page, on posts and on live stream videos, as well as on Instagram stickers)

2. enabling people on Facebook to raise money for your charity by:

   - placing a Donate button in their posts

   - setting up Fundraisers, which encourage their friends and family to donate to your charity for a specific reason. For example - a Birthday Fundraiser (which accounts for roughly half of that $3bn).

Does it matter? Yes - at least to any organisation interested in building support from individuals. Why?

Three compelling reasons to use Facebook fundraising tools

1. Your audience is there. The world’s most popular social network is the a place where huge numbers spend a lot of time. Some of them are your past, present and future donors.

2. It’s free. Charities and the donation platforms they use are under pressure to account for their costs. That’s a whole conversation in itself, but it helps that donations via Facebook are free of any charge.

3. Facebook fundraisers leverage the power of Friend-ship. People who may have never considered supporting your charity may well do so if a friend of theirs is raising money on your behalf.

So what’s the catch?

It all depends where you stand on Facebook. Providing the infrastructure to process donations at this kind of scale is a significant investment, and the associated processing frees charged by the payment card industry are also a factor. So the fact that Facebook covers it all is a big deal. But as we all know Facebook value your data too, and that’s a decision for each donor to consider when donating or fundraising in Facebook, as it is with everything else they do on the platform of course. But it doesn’t seem to be holding many people back!

Secondly, the process for getting verified as a nonprofit can be a tricky if you don’t provide the exact information they require. But it is possible, and worth it when you see that “Add a donate button” invitation appear on your page.

Getting Facebook fundraising into your CRM

It’s all very well raising money on Facebook but as any charity knows that’s only part of the story. You will want to thank your fundraisers and donors, encourage them with tips on hitting their fundraiser targets, and then nurture the relationship. And of course they may already be known to you in some other way - maybe they’re a volunteer, a member or a previous donor via other channels.

That means its important to get your Facebook fundraising data into your CRM so you can see the whole picture. Unfortunately Facebook doesn’t make it that easy. It’s spread around in different places on the platform for you to find, and there’s a report that pulls together some of the information.

Thankfully, help is at hand

Donorfy’s Facebook Giving Tools integration lets you import and manage all of your Facebook and Instagram giving by pulling in data from Facebook fundraising into Donorfy and providing tools to:

• communicate with your fundraisers and donors

• collect Gift Aid on eligible donations

• integrate the donations with your finance system.

And it starts at FREE. Contact Donorfy for more info and a demo.