# Charity: water takes donations via Facebook Messenger bot - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/08/12/charity-water-takes-donations-via-facebook-messenger-bot/ - Published: 2016-08-12T09:58:55+01:00 - Author: Howard Lake **charity: water is now handling donations via a bot on Facebook Messenger, and claims to be the first nonprofit to do so.** Messenger users can interact with the nonprofit, which [opened its UK and European office](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/06/21/charity-water-launches-uk/) in June, via Facebook Messenger. The nonprofit’s bot will respond automatically to certain trigger words, such as “donate”, with relevant options. Respond to the“ Join us” option, for example, and the bot invites you to register your email address with the charity. If you ask about making a donation, you are given the choice of: ## Advertisement * Give Monthly * Give once Note that regular giving takes the higher priority. You are then asked how much you wish to give. The payment is then handled by payment provider Stripe. > The future of digital [#fundraising](https://twitter.com/hashtag/fundraising?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw): > I just had a chat on [@messenger](https://twitter.com/messenger?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > with a bot from [@charitywater](https://twitter.com/charitywater?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > 😳 > I made a donation [pic.twitter.com/CaiwUQ0Jrx](https://t.co/CaiwUQ0Jrx) > — 𝘾𝙃𝙍𝙄𝙎𝙏𝙄𝘼𝙉 𝙎𝙊𝙋𝙃𝙐𝙎 𝙀𝙃𝙇𝙀𝙍𝙎 (@ChristianSophus) [August 12, 2016](https://twitter.com/ChristianSophus/status/763953315478515713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)   The Facebook Messenger bot was developed for charity: water by messaging specialists [Assist](http://www.assi.st/). > This makes me happy. > Powering the first charity on [@messenger](https://twitter.com/messenger?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > accepting donations. > Check it out [@charitywater](https://twitter.com/charitywater?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > [https://t.co/JZqC1pVLxN](https://t.co/JZqC1pVLxN) > — Shane Mac (@ShaneMac) [August 11, 2016](https://twitter.com/ShaneMac/status/763831087688593409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)   charity: water CTO Matthew Eckstein [told Fast Company](https://news.fastcompany.com/charity-water-is-now-taking-donations-via-facebook-messenger-4016581) that the bot had been designed to feel “as close as possible to that of donating on our own website.” He added: > “As an organisation with a very young and tech-savvy supporter base, it’s important > that we continuously adapt to reach them as they adopt new technologies and social > platforms.” Bots aren’t perfect of course. charity: water’s bot for example doesn’t seem to let you change your mind. If you click on the option to ‘join us’ and then change your mind and post a different message or comment, the bot keeps inviting you to add your email address. At one day old though it is not surprising to find some teething issues. Given charity: water’s track record in failing and learning fast, the bot is likely to become more sophisticated. ## Fundraising bots charity: water will no doubt soon be followed by other charities automating some standard procedures and processes via a bot within Facebook Messenger, and other popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. The nonprofit is simply focusing its attention on the channel that more and more people are using for their communications, and attempting to increase its efficiency. A bot is a programme that uses one or more algorithms (or sets of rules) to enable a ‘conversation’, process or transaction to take place, without the need for a human. ![Charity: water and Facebook Messenger - rise of the fundraising bots?](https:// wfay6x.infiniteuploads.cloud/2016/08/charity-water-facebook-messenger-bot-icon.jpg) charity: water and Facebook Messenger – rise of the fundraising bots? They are already in use by many companies. Hyatt Hotels for example use them for [customer service](http://digiday.com/brands/hyatt-takes-customer-service-facebook-messenger/), CNN uses them to offer [customised news](http://www.messenger.com/t/CNN) feeds, Disney lets you chat with Muppets character [Miss Piggy](http://www.messenger.com/t/MuppetsMissPiggy/), and airline KLM handles [booking and checking in](https://messenger.klm.com/) with a Messenger bot. Yesterday it was announced that [President Obama has a bot](https://www.messenger.com/t/whitehouse/) to help him receive correspondence from citizens via the White House’s Facebook page. A bot helps streamline, speed up and handle ‘conversations’ at scale, at times of the day or when numbers of contacts mean staff could simply not deal with them. Does the rise of the bots mean that some fundraisers will be out of a job? In the short term that is unlikely. Indeed, passing short transactional functions or handling standard queries could free up fundraisers to focus on other activities, or pick up on specific queries or conversations that require genuine human contact. The growth in business bots follows [Facebook’s decision in April to offer a developer platform for Messenger](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2016/04/12/bots-for-messenger/),“ making it possible for developers to connect with the more than 900 million people around the world who use Messenger every month”. David Marcus, who has run Facebook’s Messenger division since August 2014, told Wired in November 2015: > “If you can reduce that time [spent interacting with businesses] and increase > delight, if we can increase the fidelity of the conversations with the people > you care most about, then Messenger will be a very imporatnt part of your life”. In the same article, Julien Codorniu, Facebook’s director of global platform partnerships, explained what that would look and feel like: > “Once you interact with a business [on Messenger] you open a thread that will > stay forever. You never lose context of what you’re talking about. And the business > never loses context about who you are and your past purchases. It removes all > the friction”. Indeed, Mark Zuckerberg himself said in November 2014: > “Messaging is one of the few things that people actually do more than social networking”.   * **Which other fundraising functions and donor needs could be served appropriately via a bot? Add your thoughts in the comments.** ![Loading](https://fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/page-views-count/ajax-loader- 2x.gif) ## Comments ### By: HowardLake - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/08/12/charity-water-takes-donations-via-facebook-messenger-bot/#comment-1760 - Published: 2016-08-12T11:03:00+01:00 Here’s another example of a sociallly-beneficial bot designed to provide information to large numbers of people: Creator of chatbot that beat 160,000 parking fines now tackling homelessness [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/11/chatbot-lawyer-beat-parking-fines-helping-homeless-do-not-pay](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/11/chatbot-lawyer-beat-parking-fines-helping-homeless-do-not-pay) ### By: HowardLake - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/08/12/charity-water-takes-donations-via-facebook-messenger-bot/#comment-1761 - Published: 2016-09-22T12:19:00+01:00 More on charity: water’s use of a Messenger bot in its Walk With Yeshi experience: [http://www.springwise.com/charity-chatbot-raises-awareness-via-virtual-journey/](http://www.springwise.com/charity-chatbot-raises-awareness-via-virtual-journey/) ### By: HowardLake - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/08/12/charity-water-takes-donations-via-facebook-messenger-bot/#comment-1763 - Published: 2017-03-07T13:03:00+00:00 Bots can be harnessed to do some practical good too. “‘Robot lawyer’ DoNotPay is giving free legal aid to refugees seeking asylum in US and Canada, and asylum support in UK”. Chatbot that overturned 160,000 parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/06/chatbot-donotpay-refugees-claim-asylum-legal-aid](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/06/chatbot-donotpay-refugees-claim-asylum-legal-aid) ### By: HowardLake - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/08/12/charity-water-takes-donations-via-facebook-messenger-bot/#comment-1765 - Published: 2017-04-24T10:56:00+01:00 Homelessness charity Cyrenians has created a bot called Alex whom you can ask about his life. He was created to raise the issues of homelessness and family exclusion. [https://askalex.scot/](https://askalex.scot/) [https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67aef95b71b8392986e98cc20154b8d829b54b004b48d8af4b3c463d9b454824.png](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67aef95b71b8392986e98cc20154b8d829b54b004b48d8af4b3c463d9b454824.png)