Facebook to grant up to $10m to help people build and lead communities
Howard Lake | 9 February 2018 | News
Facebook has announced a global initiative that will invest in people building community. The Facebook Community Leadership Programme will receive “tens of millions of dollars”, including “up to $10 million in grants that will go directly to people creating and leading communities”.
The announcement was made today at the Facebook Communities Summit Europe, held in London. More than 300 community leaders from across Europe attended the event, including blind Veterans UK, Donna Mamma (France), Girl Skate UK, and Berlin Bruisers, Germany’s first gay and inclusive rugby club.
Facebook will also be introducing new tools for group admins, and expand its London-based engineering team that builds technology “to help keep people safe on Facebook”.
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Facebook Community Leadership Programme
The Facebook Community Leadership Program has been created “to empower leaders from around the world who are building communities through the Facebook family of apps and services”.
It is a response to requests from community leaders who “often tell us that with additional support they could have more impact”.
It includes:
Residency and fellowship opportunities
These include training, support and funding for community leaders from around the world. Up to five leaders will be selected to be community leaders in residence and awarded up to $1,000,000 each to fund their proposals.
Up to 100 leaders will be selected for Facebook’s fellowship program and will receive up to $50,000 each to be used for a specific community initiative.
The final sums might be slightly different depending on potential exchange rate fluctuations.
Community Leadership Circles
Three Community Leadership Circles were piloted in the US in 2017 and are expanding globally this year. They bring local community leaders together to meet up in person to connect, learn, and collaborate.
Groups for Facebook Power Admins
Groups for Facebook Power Admins will expand to more members. Facebook currently operates them with more than 10,000 group admins in the US and UK. They will support members by helping them share advice with one another and connecting with Facebook’s team to test new features and share feedback.
Applications are now open for the residency and fellowship.
New tools for Facebook group admins and members
To help group admins in keeping their communities, safe, organised and engaged, Facebook announced four new features to help them.
Admin tools
Admins can now find member requests, Group Insights and more together in one place. This should make it easier to manage groups and free up more time for admins to connect with members.
Group announcements
Group announcements will let admins post up to 10 announcements that appear at the top of their group. Facebook had heard many requests from group administrators who wanted this method of communicating with their members.
Group rules
Admins can now create a dedicated rules section to help them effectively communicate the rules of the group to their members.
Personalised colour
Because each community has its own identity, and people are typically members of multiple groups, admins can now add a specific colour that is displayed throughout their group, to help members notice messages from their favourite groups.
Blind Veterans UK demonstrate the value of its Facebook group.
Larger engineering team for community safety
Facebook will, by the end of 2018, double the number of staff working in London on keeping its community of users safe and secure.
Community safety activity includes:
- Detecting and stopping fake accounts
- Protecting people from harm – reducing scams and harassment
- Improving ways to report inappropriate or illegal content
WATCH: Mark Zuckerberg: Communities will drive Facebook for the next 10 years
[Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W94r3HE659M no longer available].
More Facebook fundraising news
- Facebook fundraising results from Givepanel’s charity clients (15 April 2021)
- Over 7m in the UK have donated via a Facebook fundraiser (23 March 2021)
- RNLI’s Storm Ciara Facebook post raises over £26,000 (19 February 2020)
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.