Social Innovation: Justgiving Is Making A Difference Through Facebook

JustGiving is one of the first U.K. social innovation charitable brands to develop an app using Facebook's Opengraph technology. The app was launched towards the end of April 2012 at 'The Next Web' conference in Amsterdam. Social media is now one of the most popular ways to give money, and this free tool lets people share their fundraising and giving activity with their Facebook friends, encouraging others to donate. As well as helping people showcase their generosity, it will allow fundraisers to thank the people who have supported them using a 'thank' action.


JustGiving itself was started in early 2000 by Zarine Kharas and Anne-Marie Huby who had a simple vision - they wanted to use the power of the internet to enable people to raise far more funds for charities, easily and cost-effectively. Together, they created the U.K.'s first online, social innovation fundraising business. Over the past 11 years, it has changed the face of charitable giving in Britain.

The launch of this social innovation app, Open Graph, registers Facebook users' activities on other websites, encouraging them to share what they are listening to, watching or buying. Donors on JustGiving's website will now be asked if they want to publish their donations to Facebook. JustGiving believes by more people sharing their donations, it will persuade others to donate and says, "Currently around one in 10 donors share their donation on Facebook. We hope that integrating with Facebook Open Graph will boost this even further." This social media platform is clearly a key driver in helping fundraisers to share their JustGiving pages with their supporters.

According to JustGiving data, each viral Facebook share is worth an average of £5 ($8) in donations to a U.K. fundraiser's charity. This supports the news that Facebook has now overtaken email as the second-biggest source of donations to this website. Out of around one million JustGiving donations made via Facebook, the details of 100,000 have been publicised to friends or the public; in 2011 it raised £22m ($34,900,000) and that 42,000 people set up a page every month. Money donated via a JustGiving page goes to a charity of the creator's choice.

JustGiving Product Manager Jonathan Waddingham explained this social innovation app and says, "By launching our new Timeline app, we aim to increase the number of people sharing their charitable giving online and increase the impact of those shares. We know that sharing drives donations - and by helping people to give a public display of recognition to their supporters, we predict this will help raise even more for worthy causes." Finally, here's a thought that shows the difference that JustGiving makes:  London Marathon runner Claire Squires' page has raised almost £1 million ($628,000) for The Samaritans since she died in a race on 22 April 2012.