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Crisis response solutions

A crisis often requires a swift, if not immediate, response. While it’s hard to predict when a crisis will strike, being prepared helps save valuable response time. Meta offers various crisis response solutions to help nonprofit organizations prepare and coordinate an efficient relief strategy.

•TOOLS & SOLUTIONS•CRISIS RESPONSE SOLUTIONS

Be prepared.

Preplanning helps you lead an efficient and effective disaster response.

Plan ahead.

The following questions can help guide you through critical factors your organization may need to address when responding to a crisis.

Operations

Do you have a clear goal or understanding of your role within the crisis?
What are your first steps? What steps occur within the first 24-72 hours during a crisis?
Do you need to create a task force? If so, who is part of this team?
Are you going to provide relief in the field? If so, who should be mobilized?
How does the team interact? How are actions being coordinated?
How will you communicate with staff, volunteers and your community?

Funding

Do you have funding to respond to a crisis?
Will you need to create a fundraising campaign?
How will funds be used?
Do you have access to fundraising tools on Facebook and Instagram?

Information and data

Where will you source information about the crisis?
How can you ensure the information’s integrity?
Do you have data to inform your decision-making?

Outreach

How can you reach the people you want to help? Where are they looking for information?
How are you going to create awareness about your services or initiatives?

Spread awareness.

During a crisis, people may use Meta technologies to let their friends and family know they’re safe, gather information about what’s happening or share resources to help their communities recover.

Crisis Response on Facebook.

Crisis Response is a page on Facebook that aggregates timely information about a disaster or other major events, and provides links to articles, photos and videos from public posts. It can be a great resource to help a community mobilize in times of crisis.

People on Facebook can access Crisis Response if they are in the affected area and have their location data updated. Nonprofits can help their communities by sharing the page and inviting them to check on it, and can also post offers for help to draw attention to the services and support they are providing their community in the wake of a crisis.

Learn more about Crisis Response.

Safety Check

Safety Check is a tool that allows people in an affected area to let friends and family know they are safe. It is activated when there is a high volume of regionalized posts surrounding an incident. People can see who has marked themselves as safe, invite more friends to use Safety Check and offer assistance to those impacted by the incident.

Safety Check appears as a feature on the Crisis Response page. The feature and crisis-related information may also appear in News Feed to help provide additional details about a crisis.

As a nonprofit, consider sharing the dedicated Crisis Response page and encouraging people in your community to use the Safety Check tool.

Learn more about Safety Check.

Keep people informed.

During this time, you’ll want to quickly connect with your community to help keep people safe and informed.

For crisis-related content, follow these best practices:

Pin a post to the top of your nonprofit Facebook Page to highlight emergency resources and contact information.
Go Live on Facebook or Instagram to share timely information, document disaster conditions and respond to questions in real time.
Post regularly with photos, videos and hashtags. Also, consider adding a call to action button on your nonprofit Facebook Page that will allow users to contact you through Messenger, email, phone or a website.
Use Messenger or WhatsApp to provide direct support to people in your community looking for help or answers.

Success story:
Combating influenza outbreak with Facebook Crisis Response

Raise funds.

Fundraising can be vital to supporting and sustaining relief efforts. To make it easier for you and your community to raise money on Facebook and Instagram, Meta has built free tools to help you collect donations and rally your supporters.

Fundraisers on Facebook and Instagram do not charge processing fees for donations to nonprofits.

Fundraise on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook and Instagram provide nonprofits with a range of tools to help them and their supporters raise money. Once you have established the fundraising context, goal and audience, you can engage your community and encourage time sensitive donations through tools like Facebook Live or Instagram Reel.

Empower supporters to unite and raise money on your nonprofit’s behalf, boost community morale and increase the fundraiser’s visibility with tools like Group Fundraiser on Instagram. Then, express gratitude to your supporters using the Thank You tool on Facebook.

DISCOVER THE FUNDRAISING TOOLS AVAILABLE TO YOU ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM.

Sign up for fundraising tools.

By signing up to collect donations directly on Facebook and Instagram, your nonprofit can create digital fundraising campaigns, view detailed fundraising analytics and allow people to fundraise on your behalf.

Establishing fundraising eligibility on Facebook and Instagram can take two to three weeks— anticipate this potential timeline when planning and setting fundraising goals. Submit your application here.

Check your fundraising eligibility with the Facebook Help Center’s comprehensive list of countries that currently have access to fundraising tools.

Best practices

Approaching your fundraising efforts strategically helps position them for success. During this time period, communicating with your supporters is of the utmost importance. Follow these fundraising best practices to help create transparency between you and your supporters and maximize your fundraiser’s reach.

Share your fundraising goals, any progress made towards those goals or organizational milestones and how the donated money will be used.
Show gratitude to those giving and sharing, either through the Thank You tool on Facebook, or through likes, comments and additional shares on Instagram.
Encourage supporters to create their own fundraisers through Facebook or Instagram.
Go Live: Going Live with donations is an engaging way to spread awareness. Schedule your Lives and promote them as much as possible.
Use the full scope of Meta technologies to share your fundraising efforts: Share links to the fundraiser on posts, through WhatsApp or during scheduled events.

Success story: Discover how Unicef raised more than $1 million on Facebook to help children in Yemen.

Community mobilization

Community members play a crucial role in crisis recovery. To engage a community, Meta has created spaces where people can request or offer assistance. These spaces help empower nonprofits and affected populations to turn their desire to help into tangible actions.

Offer and request help.

Nonprofits and individuals within the affected area can ask for or offer assistance by posting on the Facebook Crisis Response page their volunteer availability, offering transportation or shelter or coordinating food and supply collections.

People can search these posts by their category and location, making it easier for them to find the help they need from neighbors, friends, nonprofits, first-responders and government organizations.

In the US, nonprofits can also use the Facebook Volunteering tool to mobilize their communities and find volunteers.

Additional community tools

During or after a crisis, it is important for community members to know where they can receive aid or provide support in community recovery efforts.

Use Groups to create response teams, coordinate community relief efforts, share updates, organize volunteers and communicate with strategic partners and agencies.
Set up a Facebook Event to organize donations and volunteer opportunities if the Volunteering and Drives features are not available in your country.
Take advantage of our Emergency relief feature set. Admins can now give their group access to anonymous posts, guides, files, Q&As and events. When eligible, they can also provide assistance options, request help through Community Help or raise money through nonprofit fundraisers.

Groups moderation tools

Facebook Groups can act as spaces to coordinate community relief efforts, share updates, organize volunteers, engage in aid efforts and publish information. As an admin of a relief group, you may experience massive growth, engagement or requests for support during this time.

Read our latest blog post focused on Humanitarian Relief And Crisis Response to guide you on how to scale your efforts as safely and effectively as possible.
Utilize the available tools to help enforce your rules and regulate Group admission. For more in-depth information, consult our blog post: Leading Local Groups During Crisis.
Build an Admin team for coordinated operations that might require 24/7 Group supervision.

Reach those impacted.

In times of disaster, building trustworthy and reliable communications channels to inform people about relief efforts is essential. Meta technologies like WhatsApp or Facebook ads enable nonprofits to scale their communications with impacted communities and reach more people.

Messaging solutions

Providing timely relief requires vital information to be efficiently and effectively communicated to people in affected areas.

WhatsApp for example provides a fast, simple and secure messaging service with the ability to connect people with aid when they need it most. WhatsApp currently reaches over 2B global users, providing nonprofits access to a highly engaged community.

DAYS AFTER THE RUSSIAN INVASION, COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ASMARA AND HER GROUP HELPED INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS EVACUATE UKRAINE TO GERMANY AND REBUILD THEIR LIVES. WATCH THE VIDEO.

DISCOVER THE SOLUTIONS OFFERED BY WHATSAPP, MESSENGER AND INSTAGRAM.

Extend your reach.

When providing information about a crisis such as public health information or humanitarian aid locations, nonprofits may consider using ads to scale their communication, maximize important messaging and reach more people in affected areas.

Before you begin advertising, make sure you are familiar with our Advertising Policies, including the authorization process and requirements to run ads about social issues, elections or politics. Review these tips, policies and guidelines so you can avoid ad disapprovals.

Success story: Learn how CoVPN and Socialisssima used Facebook Ads to spur recruitment for COVID-19 vaccine trials among underrepresented groups.

Best practices and tips

Get in touch with the people you are looking to help.

Initiate contact with localized Facebook Groups within the affected area(s). By building a communication channel with these Groups, you will be able to deliver your services in a fast, recurring, relevant and responsive manner. The closer you are to your community, the more effective your approach will be.
Click on the Discover tab or use the Groups research bar to aid your search efforts. Select relevant search filters to identify local Facebook Groups that could help you reach relief efforts recipients.

Establish your points of connection.

Set a WhatsApp or Messenger call to action button on your Facebook Page.
Offer multiple entry points: consider short links, QR codes, plugins, etc.
Promote your messaging experience (ie. Facebook Post, Instagram, your website.)

Consider providing on demand support with a WhatsApp chatbot.

Benefits of using a chatbot:

Quickly and easily answer multiple questions in real time and at scale.
Reduce pressure on staff to address queries.
Send alerts and reminders.
Show care for your community by being responsive 24/7.
Provide assistance in local languages.

Health support

Meta works with health organizations to make it easier for people to find accurate health information and access health care during a crisis.

Blood Donations feature

Voluntary blood donors are essential to a safe and reliable blood supply, but in too many countries, people do not know when, where or how to give blood.

To help maintain a safe supply of blood at all times, including during disasters and crises, organizations can use the Facebook Blood Donations feature to spread awareness about the need for blood donations and connect people with blood donation centers near them.

The feature is available in more than 40 countries. Since it first launched in 2017, more than 100 million Facebook users have signed up to receive notifications about opportunities to donate.

If your organization would like to use the Facebook Blood Donations feature to reach people interested in donating blood, please review the requirements and registration steps.

Emotional Health resources

Our Emotional Health resources are available globally and feature content that helps individuals cope with a variety of emotional experiences and mental health challenges including grief and loss, depression and anxiety.

During times of crisis or disaster, we work with leading health experts and organizations to highlight mental health tips, psychosocial services and support through resource cards and featured posts shared with people in affected regions of the world.

Meta has developed informational resources throughout the Ukraine crisis. Our work has included partnering with health organizations to distribute guides on Instagram with information on how parents can talk to their kids about the crisis in an age-appropriate way.

Visit Facebook Emotional Health or consult our Help Center for more information.

Ground support coordination

Being on the ground is at the heart of many nonprofit organizations. Meta offers customized support as well as specific tools like Workplace or WhatsApp Business Platform to help you coordinate with your frontline teams and do what you do best.

WhatsApp Business Platform

Nonprofit organizations need dynamic resources to efficiently provide first responders, volunteers and supporters with essential information. WhatsApp’s global popularity—and its multi-tiered communication solutions—enables nonprofits to connect with their teams and communities in a highly-engaged, safe and secure way.

Learn more

The WhatsApp Platform API is for quick communication at scale, and is ideal for larger, more complex organizations where a significant question and conversational volume might be expected. This includes large government organizations, such as the Ministry of Health or global NGOs.

On the API, integration with backend systems, such as a government CRM system or other database, is more seamless, which means that using the API is more efficient as part of a wider, planned effort to communicate with your community, as opposed to more ad hoc updates or conversations. To use the WhatsApp API, you will need to partner directly with a WhatsApp Business Solutions Provider (BSP). WhatsApp BSPs are companies with expertise in developing for WhatsApp and other messaging channels. Find the right partner for you in our WhatsApp API Solutions Directory.

For further information and support, reach out to the WhatsApp team.

Workplace for Good

Workplace’s communication tools help organizations manage and connect with their teams and supporters, organize internal operations and collaborate in real-time through familiar, mobile-first Facebook features like Chat, Groups and video call. Through Workplace for Good, eligible nonprofits can apply for free access to Workplace tools. Visit the dedicated website for more information.

Unite frontline and HQ with Workplace.

Workplace is built with mobility in mind. Workplace does not require an email address to gain access, allowing you to connect with your volunteers, donors, frontline workers and supporters. Its features reflect those widely used across Meta technologies, making it easy to navigate for existing and first-time users.

Workplace Groups allow for centralized communication between external collaborators, making an ideal HQ platform to share insights, tips, news and announcements.

Keep everyone updated.

Utilize features like Groups, Chat and Live Video to share information. You can also replace your old intranet and make static content like Impact Reports easily discoverable through the Workplace Knowledge Library. With Workplace’s Insights tool, you get easily digestible data to identify your most impactful messages.

Success stories

Learn how WhatsApp and Workplace for Good have been used by partners with these case studies:

Goodera: Boosting volunteer engagement with the WhatsApp Business API.
CARE uses Chat (WhatsApp) to support teams during times of crisis.
Workplace for Good’s Social Impact Report shares how nonprofits use Workplace to deliver vital work.
How a healthcare organization navigated the pandemic with Workplace.

Data insights

Data for Good at Meta empowers partners with privacy-preserving data that strengthens communities, advances social issues and supports humanitarian responses. Nonprofits have used our products to vaccinate communities, halt evictions and empower women.

Explore tools and data.

Data for Good gives you access to a set of tools and data that can help you better respond to disease outbreaks, natural disasters and more.

Maps - from aggregated location insights to information on global friendship ties.
Survey - features a range of topics using the Facebook platform audience.
Visualizations - built by Data for Good and our partners, make our data easier to understand.

Visit the Data for Good at Meta website for more information.

View examples.

Explore examples of how our tools have been used:

To estimate where Ukrainian refugees are going, DirectRelief used the Social Connectedness Index as well as phone-based mobility data from Meta.
Researchers have used our Climate Conversations map to better understand how global events like COVID-19 draw focus from interactions and discussions about other global crises like climate change.
DirectRelief used data about how population densities changed New South Wales, Australia, to deliver supplies in the aftermath of wildfires.
DirectRelief used data about user movement after a 2021 earthquake in Haiti to give local responders improved situational awareness on how to best help people.
Our mobility datasets are aggregated sets of information that health researchers can use to better understand how population dynamics influence the spread of disease. For more information, read our blog post Data for Good: New Tools to Help Health Researchers Track and Combat COVID-19.

Get access.

Data for Good partners with hundreds of organizations across all continents. While some of our data are publicly available, others are only accessible to partners via a data licensing agreement. Interested nonprofits, researchers and multilateral agencies can contact us to get access. Here’s how to learn more or view Data for Good partner insights:

Visit the UN Humanitarian Data Exchange to access publicly available data.
Visit the Data for Good at Meta website to learn more about the different tools and data available to you, or to contact us to learn more about becoming a Data for Good partner.
Read more about why privacy matters to Data for Good at Meta.
Watch a tutorial series to help you make use of available insights from Meta.