Facebook's Giving Tools offer remarkable benefits to nonprofits worldwide, but navigating the realm of Facebook Business Manager Compliance can sometimes present its own challenges.
These challenges, if left unresolved, can disrupt crucial operations such as running Facebook Ads to attract new supporters, processing donations, and more. If these issues happen in the middle of a fundraising campaign, they can make events like Facebook Challenges stop halfway through.
In this article, we aim to shed light on these obstacles and offer practical solutions to overcome them, including the potential worst-case scenario: having your Giving Tools disabled by Meta.
Disclaimer: The information presented in this article is accurate and up-to-date at the time of writing. However, we cannot be held responsible for any issues related to Facebook compliance.
We hear from lots of nonprofits that they are getting their Facebook Giving Tools switched off or not receiving payments. In the worst case scenarios, this happens in the middle of a Facebook Challenge – disaster!
But why is this? What typically happens is Meta reaches out for verification on either your nonprofit's bank account or Financial Administrator. These messages usually go into your nonprofit's Facebook page support inbox (more on this later). If this isn't checked regularly, then you may miss the messages and Meta will continue by pausing payments or turning off your Giving Tools.
We encourage charities (like yours!) to create a process to:
Facebook Payments International Limited, which processes donations for European-based nonprofits, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. As a regulated payment services company, Facebook Payments International Limited must follow anti-money laundering laws.
This means that Meta is required to ensure the information they have about a charity Facebook page that has access to Facebook Giving Tools is up to date.
As part of their regular reviews, they might reach out for more information. Meta states this information is for verification purposes only and will likely be:
If your nonprofit is contacted by Meta with a request for information to validate your bank account you'll need to supply a bank document dated within the past 6 months that clearly shows the following information:
They recommend a bank statement dated within the past 6 months that includes the above information. Once this request has been made, it is usually required within 14 days, otherwise, Facebook payouts can be placed on hold.
There is a role on Facebook called ‘Financial Administrator’ that is unique to charities - this is the person who submits the paperwork to apply for the Facebook Giving Tools, and deals with any requests from Facebook for updated paperwork.
Only people with Financial Administrator status can view the Financial Administrator details as they’re hidden from all other users. The Financial Administrator role is not listed with the other page roles in Meta Business Manager. There is another role on Facebook called ‘Finance - view and manage’, but this is not the same as Financial Administrator.
If you know who your Financial Administrator is, and would like to add a new person or update details, you can follow these steps. Please note, the person holding the current Financial Administrator role will need to carry out this process.
Step 2: Add Financial Administrator
Note: The new administrator must be a Facebook friend of the current administrator who is adding them in order to be available as an option. Only people who are following your charity's account can be added as Financial Administrators.
If you don't know who your Financial Administrator is, you can access and update the details by following these steps.
If no one in your organization can access the Payouts page, that would suggest that the Financial Administrator role is held by someone who has left the organization.
For this request, you will be required to provide a formal letter from the highest-ranking official of your organization authorizing who your organization would like to add as a new Financial Administrator.
The business support inbox is where any notifications about needing to update your organization’s financial details, will be sent. We've listed a step-by-step on how to find this:
Click Help & support
Next, select Support Inbox
This will show you new and past messages from Facebook about your Page.
You can also access the Support Inbox here or via this Help Center article.
The above highlights how important it is to always record when any roles are created on Facebook, in a document outside of Facebook.
To safely manage your Facebook assets, and avoid having crucial fundraising functionality shut down when people leave your organization, we recommend doing the following:
Ensure only real profiles are set up with access to your Facebook business pages and assets - second ‘work’ profiles are against Meta's terms and conditions and very frequently lead to problems with banning and suspension. Find out more about why your team can’t use ‘work’ profiles, and how to fix it if they are already using them.
If you are a GivePanel customer who is having any problems with Facebook, contact us now and we will do our best to support you.
Book your 30-minute demo with one of our awesome Facebook Fundraising specialists today to see if GivePanel could help you raise more with Facebook fundraising.