Facebook has brought forth a new addition for nonprofits wanting to use social media to engage new donors through viral happenings. Charities can now feature on their organization’s Facebook Brand Page a “Donate Now” button.
Back in December of 2013 Facebook started to experiment with this concept by partnering with 19 hand-picked charities. Among those charities included were the American Red Cross, LIVESTRONG Foundation, Unicef, American Cancer Society, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In this experiment, a donor could enter their payment information directly on the social media site but the nonprofits did not get any names or email addresses of the people who used the donate button. This was a bit of a drawback as it stopped the charities from being able to develop relationships with those donors. Forming relationships with donors is a very critical step in obtaining repeat donors.
The “Donate Now” button was just recently made available to all nonprofits who wish to use it. For those organizations that are not partnered with Facebook, the button prompts a pop-up message with a disclaimer that reads, “Not endorsed by or affiliated with Facebook”, and then the user is directed to the organization’s official website where payment information can be entered.
There have been mixed reviews about this button, which some are calling simply a call-to-action link. Without the embedded payment process it is just adding an extra step to the payment process. While the button can be a valuable tool for nonprofits in the way of advertising and directing potential donors to their websites to make a contribution, some feel that the disclaimer directing users to external sites may be a bit off-putting.
For easy to follow steps on how to add a “Donate Now” button to your nonprofit’s page visit http://www.wikihow.com/Add-Donation-Button-to-Facebook and see how and if this new link works for you.
