Upcoming Facebook changes could benefit nonprofits

From Nonprofit Quarterly

Sometimes change can be unsettling, but Facebook’s dramatic platform changes could serve as an advantage for nonprofits. Facebook announced in late September that the way the newsfeed and postings are organized will soon undergo transformation.

Instead of presenting a chronological order of updates from friends and “liked” pages, Facebook will soon integrate a system based on algorithms. This will group similar posts into “reports” while putting less important items in a separate feed – good news for nonprofits as will allow them to stand out more.

Facebook is also integrating applications like Causes, a fundraising tool many nonprofits use. In the future, when a user donates to a charity through Causes, new features will make that action stand out for a longer period of time.

Facebook also will add new recommendation terms to the all-purpose “like” in order to encourage users to share and promote links to friends. These new terms will include “watch” and “listen” along with “donate” or “support.” These updates appear to be steps in the right direction for nonprofit organizations looking to expand their Facebook outreach.

Facebook has not commented on how pages for organizations or companies would be affected. Nonprofits hope the changes to the pages feature will not lead to the problems that occurred when all organizations had to switch from profiles to pages—losing many of their fans or friends from previous profiles in the process. Click here to read more.