Facebook Expands Charity Fundraising Tools for Celebrities and Corporations

Facebook said Thursday that public personalities and corporations can now use its charitable fundraising tools to solicit donations during live broadcasts on the site.

The company is also taking a page from the playbook of crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe and expanding its features to allow fundraising for personal reasons.

Personal campaigns will be permitted in six categories, Naomi Gleit, vice president of the Facebook social-good team, said in a post on the company’s website: education, medical procedures or treatments, pets’ medical procedures or treatments, personal emergencies like a car accident, funeral costs, and public crises or natural disasters.

“Personal fundraisers allow people to reach friends where they already are to quickly build momentum for their cause,” Ms. Gleit said. “Friends can donate in a few taps with secure payments without leaving Facebook.”

Public figures and businesses that want to raise money for nonprofits on Facebook must have a verified page, the company said. About 750,000 nonprofits have signed up and been approved by Facebook to receive donations made through the social-networking site, according to the company.

Facebook first allowed individual users to generate money for charities in June 2016. It marked a major foray into the world of online fundraising for one of the internet’s most powerful companies. But Facebook has released little information about how much money is being raised on the site.

In December, it said it had processed $6.79 million in U.S. donations on Giving Tuesday. But it declined to respond to questions about total contributions during the 2016 year-end giving season.