Facebook Updates Safety Check To Include Fundraisers

Facebook announced Wednesday (June 14) in its news a series of updates to its Safety Check feature, including the ability to start fundraisers within the feature.

In a blog post, Facebook said that with the addition of fundraisers to Safety Check, following a crisis people can raise money and request financial help. The company said people will be able to create fundraisers or donate to charities and personal causes of people in need. This feature is slated to launch in the coming weeks in the U.S., the company said.

Facebook also announced in news that it is expanding Community Help to make it available in the coming weeks on desktops as well as mobile, giving more people access to the tool. What’s more, the company said Community Help is now available for all crises where Safety Check is activated.

One of the main uses of Safety Check is to let people mark themselves as safe following a tragedy or natural disaster, but now they can also add more context with a personal note. The note will appear in the News Feed that is automatically generated when people mark themselves as safe.

“When people receive Safety Check notifications, they may have limited information about the crisis,” wrote Facebook. “To help provide additional context on crises and make sure people have the information that they need, we have started adding descriptions about the crisis from NC4, our trusted third-party global crisis reporting agency.”

Facebook said Safety Check has been activated more than 600 times since its launch two years ago and has notified people that their families and friends are safe more than 1 billion times. In May Facebook rolled out its own fundraising platform with six main categories users can launch campaigns around to raise money, including education, medical, pet medical, crisis relief, personal emergency, and funeral and loss.