Meta announces withdrawal of fundraising products in EEA
Melanie May | 26 April 2024 | News
Charities across many European countries will lose access to Meta’s fundraising products this summer, with it announcing that from 1 July this year it will no longer provide its fundraising products in the European Economic Area (EEA).
This does not affect the UK, which left the EEA when it left the EU, but it does include Ireland.
In a post on its site, Meta says that from this date, charities in the EEA will need to direct users to their respective websites for fundraising purposes instead of using fundraising products on Facebook and Instagram platforms.
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Fundraisers and Donate buttons on posts and pages will no longer be supported in the region, with all active fundraisers ending automatically and donate buttons being disabled. The Fundraiser API, and Facebook Donate Ads will also no longer be supported, and charities will no longer have access to Charity Manager, or past data from the features it provides.
SEE ALSO: Facebook fundraising tops $1.6 billion worldwide (19 September 2019)
The last day a donor will be able to make a donation on Facebook or Instagram to benefit a charity in the European Economic Area will be 30 June.
For charities enrolled to receive donations from PayPal Giving Fund Ireland, PayPal Giving Fund (PPGF) Ireland will distribute any donations made on or before 30 June 2024 according to its payout timelines. For enrolled charities, this means within 15-45 days. For unenrolled charities, PPGF Ireland will distribute funds with a cheque within 90 days.
More information on the changes is available on the Meta site.
In the post announcing the change, Meta said that it “remains committed to supporting nonprofits by connecting people to the causes they care about”, and that this year, it is “evolving our approach to help more nonprofits reach more donors”.
It also says that Meta’s Social Impact team is currently exploring new approaches to drive more donations to more charities “via their fundraising platform of choice”. One option being testing is for charities to use the Page Donate Button to link users to their website so users can donate directly. It is also exploring ways to make links to charity fundraisers more compelling to help charities engage more users.
- Over 7 million in the UK have donated to a Facebook fundraiser (23 March 2021)
- RNLI’s Storm Ciara Facebook post raises over £26,000 (19 February 2020)
- Givepanel launches to help charities build relationships with Facebook fundraisers (20 February 2019)
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.