Meta expands fundraising efforts on Facebook, Instagram for Giving Tuesday – CNET [CNET]

Meta — the newly named parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — is ready to help you give back this holiday season. On Monday, the company said it’s expanding its fundraising efforts and features, including a new “Giving Exchange” feature in the Neighborhoods section of the Facebook app and a Giving Tuesday tournament on Facebook Gaming to raise funds for nonprofits.

Meta said it will also match up to $8 million in donations made to eligible fundraisers on Facebook for Giving Tuesday, which falls on Nov. 30 this year. Giving Tuesday follows shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and is meant to be a day for people to give back to their communities.

Facebook has made similar efforts around the holiday season and Giving Tuesday before. But this year’s initiatives come as the company is under intense scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators in the wake of a whistleblower leaking thousands of internal documents about the potential harmful impacts of Facebook. Its latest donations and fundraising features give Meta a chance to highlight how it connects people and builds online communities around shared causes and goals. 

“Since we first launched fundraising tools more than five years ago, our community has raised more than $5 billion for nonprofits and personal causes on Facebook and Instagram,” said Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Meta, said in a blog post. “The holiday season is a time when many of us think about how we can give something back.”

Meta said it is also expanding the set of nonprofits that people can fundraise for on Instagram, letting people raise money for more than 1.5 million organizations. And as part of Instagram’s 11th birthday, Meta will be matching seven creators’ fundraisers up to $50,000 each through Giving Tuesday. 

The company said it will also be bringing back #BuyBlackFriday, a campaign started last year to support Black-owned small businesses on Black Friday. Meta is encouraging Facebook and Instagram users to shop for gifts through the #BuyBlackFriday gift guide collections available through the Facebook and Instagram Shop tabs. 

See also: Giving Tuesday 2021: What it is and how you can help