Facebook Fundraising issues affecting UK and Ireland: what your nonprofit can do
Facebook Fundraising Issues: We met with Meta yesterday and received an update on donation issues. The good news is that a fix has now been deployed for the fundraising progress bar on fundraiser pages. This means all new donations made as of now will reflect correctly in fundraiser totals. The Meta team continues work to fix existing, affected fundraising progress bars. However, they advised this priority work should be completed in the early New Year.
Meta also works on upgrading reporting for Facebook fundraising. This includes reducing income reporting delays. GivePanel customers are invited to take part in the early testing of this. We will share more information as soon as we have it.
🛑 Understanding the Facebook Donation Issue
Facebook Fundraising Issues: We know about an issue with Facebook Charitable Giving Tools in the UK and some EU countries like Ireland. Specifically, some donations do not appear on fundraiser totals on Facebook pages. The impact is that donors do not see their gifts reflected in real time on a friend’s page. Understandably, this confuses and concerns fundraisers and donors.
Facebook (and now Meta) has a history of fast innovation. They have raised over $7 billion for causes worldwide since launching Giving Tools. This rapid innovation and testing drove that success. For example, this is how Facebook found success with birthday fundraisers. We all know that this “move fast” culture comes with frequent changes and frustrating “bugs.” Unfortunately, these issues now significantly affect UK and Irish charities. Furthermore, Meta’s reduced staff numbers mean resolving the issues takes longer.
What GivePanel Is Doing to Help
Facebook Fundraising Issues: We have been communicating with Meta in recent weeks. We support our non-profit customers in fixing these issues. At GivePanel, we dedicate ourselves to helping non-profits grow social fundraising. As such, we continue to work closely with all parties. We provide maximum support to charities and their communities.
Here are 5 things we are doing right now to help:
- Advocacy: We continue to advocate for non-profits. We communicate directly with Meta to help them solve the issue. Previously, we helped solve a bug in November where individuals could not donate. Meta advised that this bug is now resolved.
- Public Notice Request: We have asked Meta to produce a public notice page about this issue. This would help non-profits communicate the issue to supporters. In the meantime, we put out our own notice. We hope this helps charities update their supporters.
- Communication Hub: We continue communicating with our UK and Ireland charity customers. We collate concerns and share these directly with Meta. We also keep customers informed of all updates from the Meta teams.
- Real-Time Status Page: We launched a GivePanel Status page. This provides a single source of truth with real-time updates. Customers subscribe to receive bug and performance updates directly to their inbox.
- JustGiving Integration: We developed a new JustGiving integration for Facebook Challenges. This feature gives fundraisers a secondary option to set up their page on JustGiving. Our team works around the clock to release this feature. We will update customers in the New Year.
📞 Get in Touch with Facebook Directly
Facebook Fundraising Issues: Meta continues to investigate this issue. They prioritize its resolution. We recommend you log any issue you are having directly with Meta. You can do this via the Facebook Concierge.
How to Access Concierge
You must be an admin of your Facebook page to access the link. First, check your activity status. Ensure you are active as your individual profile, not your Facebook Page. For reference, if you see your charity’s logo at the top right, you are active as your Page.
When you are active as your individual profile, the concierge link takes you to a FAQs page. You can change this status by toggling the options in the top right. Select “switch to your name.”
Once active as your individual profile, the concierge link should then take you to a page like the screenshot below. You might need to switch back and forth between your page and individual profile. Also, perform a hard refresh if you don’t see the correct screen.
Here, you select your page and submit a ticket. This generates a Job ID for tracking.
Guidance for Supporters
We know charities struggle to inform supporters about missing donations. This is because Meta has provided no public guidance. To help, we put together an article on our Knowledge Base. Non-profits can share this with their fundraisers and donors. It advises them of the issue and the next steps.
🖐️ 5 Steps for Your Facebook Challenges Right Now
If you are currently running a Challenge, you may worry about the impact on results. Here is our immediate advice:
- Use a Secondary Fundraising Platform: Most of our UK customers already use JustGiving with their Challenges. Their supporters often ask for alternative pages. Despite the current issues, we still recommend you use Facebook “first.” However, use JustGiving or a similar platform. This allows donations to be processed off Facebook.
- Signpost the Secondary Platform: You must update your group content and supporter journeys. Signpost fundraisers and donors to the alternative platform. By doing this, you give supporters a choice of where to set up their page and collect donations.
- Support and Coach Group Moderators: Supporters will likely post questions about donation issues. Keep your group moderators up-to-date. They need to know how best to support members. Update your FAQs post with guidance and pin it to the top. Prepare communication templates for posts and answers. Don’t forget communication templates for other platforms like email.
- Plan for Additional Support Time: Notify your internal data and supporter services teams about this issue. It may require additional time and resources for queries. We recommend you plan for more support time via both email and the Group.
- Have Two Sets of Projections: This issue may impact your Challenge projections. We recommend you put two sets of projections in place internally. One projection assumes normal Facebook fundraising. The second projection assumes issues continue. For the latter, reduce active fundraising pages by 20% and keep the same average gift.
🤝 Here to Help & Coming Soon
If you are a GivePanel customer, you can contact your Customer Success Manager or our support team anytime. They will happily listen to your concerns and provide guidance. You can contact our support team at su*****@*******el.com or via this form.
Coming Soon: GivePanel and JustGiving Integration
We are excited to work on a brand new feature. Our JustGiving integration will support our charity customers. It will give fundraisers a secondary option to set up their page on JustGiving.
Want to know more? We will host a webinar in the New Year. You can find out all about it and how to get involved. Follow us on LinkedIn for updates!
Would you like me to find the best link for the Facebook Concierge tool?