Facebook Launches ‘Social Good Team’
29 September 2015 at 12:38 pm
Social media giant Facebook has launched a “Social Good Team” with the purpose of building features to connect users with social issues.
The company said people were already using Facebook as a platform to raise money for disaster relief, to search for missing children and to bring attention to the issues that are important to them.
The Facebook Social Good Team will focus on creating more features that will make the connections between social issues and users easier.
The company used its response to the Nepal earthquakes earlier this year as an example of how the social network could be used to make real change in the world.
Vice President of Product Management at the Social Good Team, Naomi Gleit, said 770,000 people from 175 countries came together on Facebook to offer their support. They raised $15.5 million to benefit International Medical Corps’ relief efforts on the ground.
“Nearly 450 health facilities were completely destroyed during the earthquakes. Another 700 were partially damaged. By operating mobile and static rehab facilities and rebuilding damaged facilities, International Medical Corps provided medical care, training and supplies that helped more than 150,000 people,” Gleit said.
“International Medical Corps supplied small cash grants of $75 to 5,656 families who lost everything during the earthquakes. These grants helped each family access urgent supplies like food, cooking oils and materials for temporary shelter. An additional 6,960 families benefitted from the distribution of 1,392 healthy family kits that included rice, lentils, blankets, mosquito nets and hygiene supplies. Another 12,701 families received tools and seeds for future harvests.
“An additional matching grant of $2 million from Facebook was used to fund local organisations in Nepal — Give2Asia, in partnership with Facebook, is distributing these funds to support ongoing relief and rebuilding efforts like restoring electricity to rural areas, building semi-permanent shelters and classrooms to replace damaged schools, providing psychosocial training for teachers, and providing improved construction training to crews rebuilding across Nepal.”
In April and May, the Facebook community donated over $15 million to support Nepal Earthquake survivors. We'd like to share an update on how your donations are helping International Medical Corps and the people of Nepal rebuild.
Posted by Facebook on Monday, 28 September 2015
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg issued a personal thank-you to Facebook users for supporting the company’s relief efforts in Nepal.
“Earlier this year Facebook users donated to support Nepal after the earthquakes took place there. We wanted to show you how your support is helping rebuild Nepal in a way that will have a lasting impact on people there. On behalf of all of us at Facebook and International Medical Corps – thank-you,” Zuckerberg said.
Other examples of features that the Social Good Team would be responsible for initiating include the “donate now” button and the “safety check” tool which allows users to connect with loved ones during a disaster.
