Facebook has introduced a crowdfunding feature to help users back causes such as education, medical needs, pet medical, crisis relief, personal emergencies and funerals.
Facebook says it has expanded its fundraisers tool, now letting users create personal fundraiser pages to raise money for themselves, friends, and people or things not on the social network. Previously, users could only raise money for an official, registered nonprofit organization on the platform.
The “personal fundraiser” feature will roll out over the next few weeks to users in the US, only for those age 18 and up. Anyone with access to it will be able to set up a dedicated Facebook page with information about the fundraiser, where they can pick a donation goal and receive money through the site.
If this sounds a lot like a GoFundMe clone, that’s because it essentially is. Facebook has become famous for copying rivals’ features recently, and the company’s massive reach allows it to experiment with all kinds of new options and add-ons to its incredibly popular services.
Perhaps an even more important addition announced today is a new Donate button being added to Facebook Live for Pages. Users with verified Pages can now add the donate button to their live broadcasts, where users can give money during or after the broadcast has ended.
While these new features are relegated to specific non-profit type uses, it’s not hard to imagine them being rolled out for for-profit use as well, perhaps with FB taking a cut of the money raised in such cases.
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