Instagram Live offers a new way to start a fundraiser

Instagram is introducing a new way for users to raise money for nonprofits. 

On Tuesday, the company introduced Donations on Instagram Live, which has been gaining in popularity in recent months. 

To start a Live Donation, open Instagram on your phone, tap the camera icon on the top left, choose Live on the bottom of the screen, select Fundraiser, and choose a nonprofit you want to support. Instagram says that all of the money raised will go directly to that organization. 

Instagram has offered a way for users to support causes through Donation stickers on Instagram Stories since May 2019, but the new option is a bit more immediate and comes with some additional cool features, such as being able to see how many people are supporting the fundraiser, as well as the amount of money raised in real time. The person running the Live Donation can also thank supporters in real time by tapping Wave. 

The timing is right for the feature, with Live usage on the platform surging during the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Instagram Live has experienced 70% growth compared to last month,” Vishal Shah, Instagram’s head of product, told Mashable in an interview. And even though some influencers have already been using Instagram for fundraisers, the Live Donations feature makes this easier — and a lot more powerful, he said.

The reach of the new feature is fairly big. Instagram works on top of Facebook’s donation infrastructure, so there are more than 1 million nonprofits and many individuals already onboarded. 

Shah says that Live Donations aren’t just a temporary feature for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s here to stay,” he said. 

Instagram has also launched another new feature for donations through Story stickers. Now, when someone donates to a nonprofit through a sticker, they get to unlock an “I donated” sticker for themselves. 

Finally, the company is also launching a temporary feature which will start on Wednesday and run for the rest of the week, enabling anyone who taps on the “I donated” sticker to see exactly how much money has been raised for a particular cause. 

Financial onboarding can be a choke point for features such as these — if users have to go through too much trouble to enter their credit card details, or if their payment gateway of choice isn’t supported, they’ll be less likely to donate. Shah says this will vary in different countries, but in the U.S., major credit cards and PayPal are supported. He points out that absolutely all of the funds raised will go to the nonprofits — payment processing fees won’t be subtracted from donations. 

Instagram plans to launch more similar features in the near future. “In the coming weeks and months, you will see more from us in this area, specifically supporting small businesses, creators, and personal fundraisers, which is very important at this time,” Shah said.