Meta starts fundraiser feature on Instagram Reels to help nonprofits raise money

To celebrate Earth Day, Meta made sure to offer concrete steps that can contribute to the healing of the environment. With this, apart from its effort to achieve its goals of net-zero emissions across its value chain and being water positive in 2030, Meta announced that Instagram users in more than 30 countries can now donate to and create fundraisers directly in Reels. It will benefit more than 1.5 million environmental nonprofits.

“We know that people are worried about climate change and want to take action, but feel that the problem is too big and they’re not sure how to help,” Meta says in its post. “Check out some ways you can get started across our technologies, whether that’s leading the charge on fundraising for a cause or just learning more about climate issues.”

According to Meta, the fundraising feature on Instagram Reels that started on April 19 is already being tried by influential Instagram users like Lil Dicky, Maggie Baird, Zyahna Bryant, and others who want to raise money to help activities building awareness of climate change and sustainability.

On the other hand, to express its full dedication and support for the feature released, Meta promises it will “cover the donation processing fees, so all the money raised using Fundraisers on Instagram goes directly to the organization.”

The new update came after the support for the fundraising feature for Instagram live streams in 2020 and the personal fundraiser capability in 2021. As of now, Meta says more than $150 million of funds for environmental causes have been donated by over 4 million people via Facebook and Instagram fundraisers. Nonprofits on Instagram that benefit the most from this feature are The Ocean Cleanup, World Wildlife Fund, and Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

The announcement was made on April 19, alongside other updates reflecting Meta’s participation in the Earth Day celebration. It includes the Earth Day stickers on Instagram, Facebook environmental profile frames, and a custom sticker pack and 3D Avatar stickers built just for Earth Day on Messenger.

Moreover, apart from encouraging its users to shop up-cycled items on Facebook Marketplace, Meta hopes to educate individuals too with the environmental VR content on Quest featuring endangered mountain gorillas in the volcanic jungles of northern Rwanda, giant pandas rescued from the wilds of China, and the children of Cabo Pulmo. Finally, Meta introduces new features for its Climate Science Center that will highlight “everyday actions and solutions people can take and showcasing new data visualizations that show country-level emissions and curating new content.”