Instagram adds donation button to Reels, turning them into fundraisers

Meta Platforms Inc., the social media giant formerly known as Facebook, is expanding its offering of fundraising tools and making them available to 1.5 million nonprofits. Facebook and Instagram platforms.

Starting Tuesday, Instagram users can attach donation buttons to their reels, turning short videos into fundraising. As with donations to Facebook and other Instagram content, Meta will collect and pass on donations to nonprofits at no cost, paying the same processing fees.

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More than $ 6 billion has been donated to Facebook and Instagram since fundraising began on the platforms in 2015, according to Emily Dalton Smith, Meta’s vice president of product management and social impact. Donations increased by $ 1 billion in nine months in 2021, with 100 million creators and donors participating in fundraising on social media platforms.

Most of these gifts come from small donors. Most Instagram donations in 2021 were under $ 20.

“It’s that a lot of people come together and give their best to the causes,” Dalton Smith said.

Expanding fundraising to new platforms has yielded surprising results. On Instagram, the non-profit environmental organization that has received the most donations is not a household name. This is The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization founded in 2013 by an 18-year-old inventor, Boyan Slat in the Netherlands, who wanted to get rid of the plastic oceans.

Dalton Smith said The Ocean Cleanup has been successful because it is “the first on Instagram,” building its communities on the platform. Attractive images and graphics, along with weekly updates on their plastics removal missions and collaborations with the Coldplay band, have helped the group generate nearly 700,000 follow-ups.

“We don’t have data to back it up yet, but we see the first signs that this will actually help grow the donation and help increase support for a more diverse set of organizations and help new causes emerge,” Dalton Smith said.

Rue Mapp, founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, an Oakland-based organization that connects blacks with nature, said her group would not have grown as fast as it did without Facebook and Instagram connecting it with donors and volunteers. . And he has developed a strategy on how to use Reels to raise money for the group’s initiative to teach more black people how to swim.

“Fundraising is supposed to be fun, isn’t it?” Mapp said, laughing. “People give to people. They don’t give to vague ideas or concepts. People really want to connect with what they’re giving.”

The new Outdoor Afro Reels campaign of videos showing black people enjoying swimming, he said, will show the work of his group and provide a reason to continue.

“Take advantage of something that comes with social media, that’s the collective impact,” Mapp said. “We were able to grow our organization because we brought together this group of people who didn’t know other people who had a similar interest.”

Outdoor Afro considers Meta’s use of its platforms to raise funds for the group without charging a processing fee to be another useful donation. Depending on which platform is used and whether other third-party applications are used, processing fees typically range from 5% to 15% of the donation. While some experts say that larger nonprofits may prefer to use social media to send people to nonprofits’ own sites to make donations, smaller groups may find the Meta system useful. .

“For start-up organizations like Outdoor Afro, it can have a huge impact,” Mapp said.

Meta has some of her own Earth Day plans, with Dave Burd (aka Lil Dicky), Zyahna Bryant and Nate Evans of Beautiful Destinations ready to create special reels for the day.

Dalton Smith said Meta has listened to users who enjoy being able to raise money.

“They have a very strong sense of accomplishment and they felt they could make a difference in being able to take action themselves by raising funds,” Dalton Smith said. “Meeting support is really something unique on our platforms and makes people feel like they can really get involved directly to make a difference for the cause that matters to them.”