THE CHALLENGE

Tapping tech in disaster relief

Crisis Response work at Meta has always prioritized connecting people who want to support local communities in times of disaster.

“Meta is committed to building community and connecting people from across the world, particularly during times of crisis, when recovery efforts led by responding organizations living and working directly in affected communities are often overlooked and underfunded,” Kylie Holmes, Head of Global Crisis and Disaster Response at Meta said.

In 2017, millions of people were already using Facebook to connect and support each other during times of crisis. Meta understood the potential that Facebook tools held to support communities responding to crises and launched the Crisis Response Hub, which allows users to find information about recent crises, mark themselves safe, and ask for or offer help. With this in place, Meta created the crisis donate button for hundreds of millions of people around the world to help their community by donating to crisis recovery efforts with just a few clicks.

Meta knew it needed a partner that supports local nonprofits during all stages of disaster response and sought a partnership to help people take action by donating in response to a disaster.

THE SOLUTION

A partnership that powers community-led responses

GlobalGiving met with the Meta Crisis Response team in 2017, and the crisis donate button partnership was launched.

Meta features a crisis donate button on Facebook that enables its users to donate in support of disaster relief efforts around the world. GlobalGiving directs 100% of these donations to vetted, primarily local nonprofit organizations that are responding to emergencies in impacted areas and supporting affected communities.

GlobalGiving and Meta work quickly to minimize the time between fundraising and getting the money into the hands of local organizations on the front lines of disaster response.

As soon as a disaster activation takes place on Facebook, the GlobalGiving team begins sourcing vetted, local organizations in its extensive nonprofit partner network. GlobalGiving receives the donations from Meta and quickly awards a flexible, trust-based grant to an organization responding to that disaster event.

After funds have been awarded, GlobalGiving provides quarterly impact reports to Meta that detail how the GlobalGiving nonprofit partners used the funding to support their communities in response to a disaster.

“We can always count on our partnership with GlobalGiving and its nonprofit partner network to support locally led disaster response efforts around the world.”
— Kylie Holmes, Meta

THE RESULT

Five years of impact

Since the launch of the crisis donate button partnership five years ago, Facebook users have aided disaster relief and recovery efforts for communities from South Sulawesi, Indonesia to São Paulo, Brazil. Through the partnership, Meta and GlobalGiving have driven substantial funding to more than 600 local organizations in at least 115 countries to address nearly 1,000 disaster events.

Local organizations understand the needs in their communities better than anyone else. In the aftermath of a disaster, they should never be overlooked and underfunded. The crisis donate button partnership sends a powerful message that Meta cares about local communities and can enable them to take action to support their community.

By directing funds toward local responders and organizations, these efforts to leverage tech in disaster relief have helped make a difference for survivors. Over the past five years, funds raised through the crisis donate button have supported community-led disaster response efforts like these:

• When heavy rainfall hit Kenya from February to June 2018, causing massive flooding after an intense period of drought, the team at Childline Kenya, a Nairobi-based nonprofit that protects children from abuse, had to act quickly. The flooding killed more than 100 people, and the Childline Kenya team knew that children, especially those living in poverty, would have the greatest needs in the aftermath of a disaster. With a grant from funds raised through the crisis donate button, the organization provided counseling services, legal support, and medication to protect children affected by the flooding.
• Community members in Uchiza, Peru experienced devastating floods and landslides in December 2019. DIACONÍA, a locally based organization in Peru, partnered with community leaders like Betty, to ensure survivors had access to clean water. With a grant through the Meta crisis donate button, the organization distributed 12 water filters to survivors most in need in Uchiza based on feedback from community leaders.
• Typhoon Haishen hit Kyushu, Japan in 2020 during an already fraught and dangerous time with the COVID-19 pandemic. Operation Blessing Japan used a grant through the Meta crisis donate button to distribute chlorine to disinfect drinking water and masks to halt the spread of COVID-19 among elderly people, people with disabilities, and patients in hospitals across Japan.
• Typhoon Rai/Odette devastated communities across the Philippines in late 2021. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, The Bicycle Scouts Project used a grant through the Meta crisis donate button to bolster its network of local Volunteer Bicycle Messenger teams to provide emergency supplies and essential life-saving information to isolated and hard-to-reach communities that were severely impacted by the storm.
• The Mosquito Fire was the largest wildfire in California in 2022. It burned more than 75,000 acres in northern California and displaced more than 10,000 people. The Latino Community Foundation, using a grant from the crisis donate button, activated its Wildfire Relief Fund and Just Recovery Partnership to provide critical financial assistance, rehousing support, and emergency translation for Latino and Indigenous families impacted by wildfires.

Want to learn more about incorporating a nonprofit partnership into your company’s crisis response strategy through GlobalGiving?

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