Corporations Turn to Facebook Members to Direct Charitable Resources Through Crowd Funding

Major corporations are utilizing Facebook members to direct their crowd funding resources. Buddy Media Platform has identified five of the latest trends on Facebook, one of which involves Facebook members driving corporate charitable giving via a voting system.

Trend Viewed as “Crowd Funding” to Direct Charitable Resources

Buddy Media has described how more and more corporations are turning to this method of donating. As an example, in 2009, discount retailing store Target asked Facebook members to determine where its $3 million in charitable donations should be directed on a weekly basis.

This year, Chase’s Community Giving program turned to Facebook members for crowd funding ideas of where to send its donations. This campaign has since come to a close, but Facebook members directed $250,000 to HP Alliance in Somerville, MA, and this is only a fraction of the $5 million that Chase has pledged to donate to 200 charities, all of which will be decided by Facebook members.

Yahoo also recently utilized a similar concept to raise over $100,000 dollars for cancer charities. The company pledged a $1 donation to “Stand Up For Cancer”, for each “like” vote received on their OMG! Facebook Page.

Kohl’s, another firm that is turning to Facebook for its charitable efforts, is providing $20 million dollars to schools through the social media giant.

More and more corporations are using the concept to improve their own branding, while at the same time providing Facebook members with the ability to decide whom the recipients of each donation will be.

Microgiving fully supports the use of social media sites to prompt collective action, in order for corporations to direct corporate charitable resources in a responsible and democratic fashion. At Microgiving, we use your individual donations to collectively support, or crowd fund, those in need. If would like to take part in crowd funding yourself, please visit our website and donate online today.

Tags: charitable giving, charitable resources, Crowd Funding, MicroGiving, recipients, social media, social-networking