Facebook Scandal Unlikely to Transform Charity Fundraising, Experts Say

Facebook’s data-privacy scandal is on the minds of fundraisers and online advocacy professionals attending the Nonprofit Technology Conference here this week. But so far nonprofits aren’t giving up on raising money through the social-media giant.

There was nervous laughter when the discussion in one session turned to using Facebook ads to attract new donors.

“Facebook has a lot of data about us,” Matt Derby, a vice president at the fundraising consultancy M+R, told conference participants. He went on to explain that nonprofits could upload a list of donors, and the company would analyze what it knows about them and assemble an audience of other Facebook users with similar characteristics to which the organization could direct its ads.

Derby said that while Facebook is considering changes to how it uses third-party data, he doesn’t think its business model — harnessing what it knows about users to target advertising — was likely to change significantly.

“To be honest, this platform is where we’ve seen a lot of our success,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going away, unless users start to leave the network, in which case I guess all bets are off.”

A member of the audience asked whether he felt comfortable providing that information to Facebook, in light of revelations about how the company.

“There’s a really interesting privacy question about whether people have given you permission to submit them to Facebook, not for targeting but just to provide an example for the kind of targeting you want to do,” he said. “But ultimately I have no control over what Facebook then uses that information for on the back end. Facebook promises not to, but we’ve sort of seen where that’s gone.”

He recommended organizations talk to their lawyers about their privacy settings and what responsibilities they might have.

Alex Gray, director of digital engagement at Oceana, said that he and his colleagues are talking about whether Facebook’s data practices and public-relations woes mean the organization has to change its use of the social network for online fundraising. “We’re trying to keep our finger on the pulse and treat it as a developing situation.”

Using Chatbots

In another session, Andre Sternberg, digital advertising manager at the Sierra Club, described how his organization created a Messenger chatbot to expand its email list, win monthly donors, and attract new supporters. The effort started in July 2017, and the group has nearly 200,000 Messenger subscribers. Its goal is to get to 1 million by the end of the year.

Sternberg said that response rates in Messenger haven’t decreased despite the messaging app’s ties to Facebook.

He said that while the company hasn’t always acted ethically, Facebook is an incredible tool for organizing. “From the Arab Spring to the Women’s March, I think the positives outweigh the negatives.”