Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg is Killing off Small Non-profits
For the second time in the last year, Facebook has changed its formatting. As a small 100% volunteer non-profit animal rescue, we adapted the first time around. But this second time, the changes seem deliberately targeted at eliminating small non-profits by removing access to tools that were previously available. Understandably, Facebook is looking for ways to increase their revenue, and the new format certainly it easier for them to do so via the new tools. I would love to just pay Facebook outright to use their platform if it meant that the non-profit could continue to earn donation revenue (over 1/3 of our revenue comes in through Facebook). Or, I would gladly pay a percentage of donation money to Facebook (like the fees charged by Paypal or a credit card company) to continue to access the tools we need.
Some of the ways Facebook is killing off our ability to raise donation money is the lack of access to donor information on our posts. In the past, we had visibility to everyone who donated and could personally thank them for donating. So, individual “Thank you for your donation, John Smith” could be posted in the comment section recognizing the donor for their generosity. Additionally, Donation Reports could be run at any time for any timeframe so that we could also thank those who donated via our main Donate Button on our page, or on posts or fundraisers that others created on our behalf. We can no longer run those Donation Reports, so we have no visibility as to who donated what amount; and have no way of thanking those who donated. In fact, we can’t even add a Donate Button to our posts anymore.
The Donation Reports were also critical to our financial reporting as well, because we could differentiate the medical funds donations that were made to specific dogs/cats (Restricted Donations, in IRS terms) versus General Donations that could be used for other animals or costs (Unrestricted Donations). So, our IRS reporting is no longer going to be accurate as we will not be able to individually classify donations.
Another odd thing that Facebook changed was the visibility to the actual number of “Followers” and “Likes”. Our rescue has over 19,000 followers. The exact number used to be posted on our page. Now, it is a rounded number (19K versus our actual 19,562). That seems like an insignificant change, but we used that actual number to post how many additional followers we needed to hit the next milestone. For instance, “Invite your friends to Like our Page. We need 438 more followers to hit 20,000!”. Now, there is no way of tracking our progress towards that goal. Of course, the HUGE non-profits don’t care — they have over a million followers. So, 1.7M Followers actually looks better on their page than 1,745,125 Followers.
One would think that perhaps these were oversights by Facebook in redesigning their format. However, they appear to be deliberate restrictions, and in fact, the ideal way to kill off small non-profits who personally cultivate their donor base and rely heavily on the Facebook platform to raise funds. This, of course, would benefit the HUGE non-profits, making their competition on Facebook defunct. Note again, that while we are a 100% volunteer non-profit animal rescue that rescues over 300 animals per year, we are nothing compared to HUGE animal welfare organizations that pay their executives millions of dollars and year and indirectly save tens of thousands of animals. Additionally, those HUGE non-profits can afford to pay a team of people to post on their social media accounts and other income generating platforms, unlike the smaller non-profits who are 100% volunteer and can’t afford to hire marketing and social media experts. I am sure that the revenue Facebook makes from HUGE non-profits far outweighs the combined revenue of all the small non-profits that depend on their platform to generate revenue. Hence, I am assuming that is why there is no interest in addressing the concerns elevated by small non-profits about the restrictive new format.
So, Thank You Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. We will have to significantly scale back our rescue efforts due to a significantly reduced income. It is possible, if Facebook gets any more restrictive, and our donors lose interest in us because of our lack of perceived appreciation for their donations, that we may even have to close down our operation.