Aussie NFP scores major partnership with Facebook

Humanitix founders say its Facebook integration will boost funding for education programs helping the world’s most disadvantaged children

An Australian social enterprise is partnering with Facebook to make it easier for charities to post events.

Not-for-profit ticketing platform Humanitix – which redirects its booking fees for events to charities – announced its integration as an events ticketing partner with Facebook on Tuesday.  

The integration means events can go live on both platforms simultaneously, without the need to recreate the event on Facebook.

Humanitix founder Joshua Ross told Pro Bono News this allows event organisers to redirect their time and energy towards more important tasks.

“If you’re a not-for-profit event organiser and running 50 events a year, this is going to save you countless hours,” Ross said.

“It’s a really big deal for us because it takes a long time to get an integration like that over the line with Facebook… and hopefully there’ll be more to come in terms of the opportunities to partner with them.”

Humanitix is focused on funding education projects, such as literacy programs for young girls.

Ross said since event organisers will be able to reach more people and sell more tickets, it meant there would be more funds for scholarships and education programs for the world’s most disadvantaged students.

“Taking the time and effort out of the equation and just making it a no brainer to promote through more avenues should lead to better publicity for our clients’ events, which in turn means more tickets and more social impact,” he said.

“In fact, every paid ticket we sell is going to provide more Indigenous scholarships, put more young girls into literacy programs and offer more meals for kids in need.”

Ross added that this partnership built on the charity’s recent success securing funding from Google and Atlassian.

Humanitix was also used for the first time in 2019 by Silicon Valley’s Singularity University Sydney Summit, which was the first conference in Sydney to trial facial recognition at check-in for attendees.

Ross said there had never been a charity that adopted a Silicon Valley startup model and succeeded globally, but this positioned Humanitix to effectively do this.

“It’s just another major milestone in our journey to try and achieve that mission and drive an insane amount of social impact to effectively harness that Silicon Valley startup model,” he said.

Will Easton, the managing director of Facebook Australia and New Zealand, said this partnership was a “rethink of how charity can be done”.

“[It] means event organisers can share their events with their community on Facebook and, as a result, their community will fund incredible work in education. Every purchased ticket counts,” Easton said.

The partnership also won the support of the Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher.

He said Humanitix has had a meteoric rise since its inception in his electorate of Bradfield.

“It has been supported by Google.org and the Atlassian Foundation, won the NSW Premier’s Award and has become the fastest growing ticketing platform in Australia and New Zealand. It’s great to see Facebook getting behind them,” Fletcher said.

“This support will help Humanitix to keep on with its mission to make a difference in our community.”