Meta has quietly announced that the Facebook Fundraiser functionality is being expanded to Instagram. If your nonprofit is eligible for Instagram Charitable Giving Tools, then your supporters can now create fundraisers for your nonprofit. According to Meta:

We’re expanding the set of nonprofits that people can fundraise for on Instagram. In the coming weeks, you’ll now be able to raise money for more than 1.5 million organizations by adding a fundraiser to a post. This will be available in countries that support nonprofit fundraisers. 

100% of donations raised for nonprofits through fundraisers created on Facebook and Instagram go directly to the organization picked by the donor. All donations are processed securely by Facebook Pay, making it easy to donate in just a few taps.

In April 2020, Instagram rolled out “Donate” stickers for stories and shortly thereafter, Instagram Live Donations and “Donate” buttons for profiles. Meta has not announced how much is being raised through Instagram Charitable Giving Tools, but according to nonprofit fundraisers that have participated in the Open Data Project, the tools thus far have not been successful for fundraising.

Instagram Feed Fundraisers will change that. In March of 2021, Meta announced that their Charitable Giving Tools had raised $5 billion for nonprofits worldwide since their launch in 2016 with the vast majority of that $5 billion has been raised by individuals creating Facebook Fundraisers to support their favorite nonprofits, according to the M+R Benchmarks Report. Now, individuals on Instagram will also be empowered to create Fundraisers for your nonprofit.

To begin, sign up for Charitable Giving Tools. Once approved, link your nonprofit’s Instagram account with your Facebook Page and make sure that your Instagram account has been upgraded to a business account. Then, once the Instagram Feed Fundraiser function is expanded to your account, there are two ways your nonprofit can benefit:

1. Your supporters can create fundraisers for your nonprofit on Instagram.

The process is simple. Your supporters can easily “Create Fundraiser” for your nonprofit by selecting “+” and choosing “Post” or “Fundraiser.” Instagram fundraisers last for 30 days, can be added to any and all posts within that 30 days, and are also featured on the creators’ bio. For example:

It’s worth noting that the Instagram Feed Fundraiser experience is entirely contained within the mobile app. For now, they are not visible on Instagram Desktop.

Finally, your supporters likely do not know that this new fundraising tool exists, so it benefits your nonprofit to spread the word and be an early adopter. Save the Children encourages their supporters to fundraise on Facebook and it’s likely they will be adding an Instagram ask to their “Donate Your Birthday” page on their website in the near future:

2. Your nonprofit can create fundraisers to raise funds for your organization.

Similar to how nonprofits can create Fundraisers to benefit their organization on Facebook, nonprofits can also create Fundraisers on Instagram. As of the publication of this post, the function was not available to all nonprofits and Meta provides no information on the subject. However, the nonprofits that do have early access are being successful as fundraising on Instagram.

If your nonprofit is set up to use Instagram Charitable Giving Tools, please check to see if “Fundraiser” option is available in your account and let us know so we can better update this post. Thank you! In the meantime, we’ll all be learning as we go along and best practices for using Instagram Feed Fundraisers will follow.

101 Digital Marketing & Fundraising Best Practices for Nonprofits is a blog and webinar series on website design, email marketing, online fundraising, and social media best practices for nonprofits, NGOs, and charities worldwide. Those who register and attend all three webinars in the series will earn a Certificate in Digital Marketing & Fundraising from Nonprofit Tech for Good.