Facebook is making it easier to donate essentials to those in need
The company has started rolling out Drives to users in the US.
The holidays can be a hard time for some in the best of circumstances. Add to that the coronavirus pandemic, and you have more people than ever struggling to get through the winter season. To help its users help each other, Facebook is adding a new Drives feature to the Community Help section that makes it easier for you and your friends to collect food, clothes and other vital goods for those in need.
An icon near the top of the main Community Help page allows you to request or offer help. Once a drive is created, you can contribute to it through tapping another easy-to-find icon. Like a crowdfunding campaign, there’s a progress bar at the top that tells you how close the Drive is to accomplishing its goal. Facebook also gives you the option to contact the person who created the drive through Messenger. The company is currently in the process of rolling out the feature to select users in the US, promising it will be more widely available across the country in the coming weeks.
In the future, you’ll also have the option to share posts directly within your feed that invite people to donate to a nonprofit charity, with 100 percent of the money going to that organization. The company said it’ll have more information to share on how all of that will work soon, but what we do know for now is that the payments will be processed through Facebook Pay.
Charity drives are just one of the ways Facebook users will be able to help theirs neighbors out this year . When Giving Tuesday lands on December 1st this year, the company will match up to $7 million in donations people make through Facebook to US nonprofits.
