Nearly six months ago, a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal. Since that time, people around the world have been making donations and providing assistance to help rebuild the country. As an international platform aimed at connecting people, Facebook participated in this effort. Today it’s touting its success, thanks to both its Donate and Safety Check feature.
Within two months following the earthquake, Facebook says more than 8.5 million people used its Safety Check tool to help notify friends and family that they were safe. The reach was pretty big too: over 150 million people worldwide received these notifications. Safety Check had only been available for a few months prior to this event aimed specifically at letting people know your status during a natural disaster, emerging after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
To rally support for relief efforts and give its 1.49 billion monthly active users an outlet to feel like they’re helping in some way, Facebook implemented its Donate button and that resulted in contributions from more than 770,000 people from more than 175 countries. The result was more than $15 million being raised to support the International Medical Corps, which helped 210,000 people in Nepal.
From VentureBeat
The Facebook donate button was launched in 2013 as a way to help nonprofits raise money. The social networking company doesn’t take any cut of the donation and it’s available to many charity organizations, including Oxfam America, Donors Choose, World Wildlife Fund, Malaria No More, Water.org, and the United Nations World Food Programme.
Facebook says that it has also provided a $2 million matching grant to fund local organizations in Nepal, thanks to its partnership with Give2Asia.
A company spokesperson said in an email that the outpouring of support towards Nepal has inspired Facebook to dedicate a team aimed at building more products around doing social good. So like the donate and Safety Check features, it’s likely that more charitable options will be coming soon.
Starting this week, the social networking company will be sending a thank you video to the more than 770,000 people that donated to provide them with an update, showing what their support has resulted in.
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Over 220K Facebook users donated $15M to support Nepal earthquake relief
from VentureBeat » Social Media Companies | Social Network News | VentureBeat http://ift.tt/1iWnK6p
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