Facebook’s Donate Button Helps Nonprofits — And Facebook

Facebook is making it easier to use the social network to make charitable contributions to nonprofits with a new donation feature. The feature rolling out to its members Monday, lets people click a “Donate Now” button on a participating nonprofit’s post that will show up in the News Feed section. The donate button is also available on a nonprofit’s Facebook Page. For members who have previously made purchases through Facebook, the donation process amounts to just two clicks. Otherwise would be givers will have to enter their credit card information, which Facebook will then automatically keep on hand for future purchases/donations.

Facebook said in a press release after the November 2013 Typhoon Haiyan.

“We partnered with the International Federation of Red Cross to let people donate directly to the Red Cross’ relief efforts in the Philippines. After seeing the generosity of people around the world towards this effort, we have been inspired to help everyone donate, at any time, to the organizations they care about the most.”

It is a touching sentiment and the donate option could certainly help rally people to give in times of crisis, but it is not an entirely altruistic move on Facebook’s part. Should you choose to donate, you will have helped Facebook build out its database of members with credit cards attached to their accounts. Over the past few years Facebook has pushed to get more people to hand over their credit card information whether this be by charging to message people you don not know, attempting (with little avail) to sell gifts for birthdays, anniversary’s, special occasions and testing a pay-with-Facebook feature. Time will tell whether more people will now donate online via social media rather than the traditional ways.

Thank you CNET for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of CNET.