Facebook to Introduce Charity Gifts

Last week it is reported that Facebook was opening up its virtual gift shop to third-party developers and also introducing physical gifts, for example, being able to send someone a dozen roses using Facebook credits.Speaking at today’s Social Good Conference, Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg made another announcement surrounding the Facebook Gift Shop: charity gifts.In a test starting next week, (RED), Kiva, Toms, and WWF will each offer 1-2 gifts at $5 or $10 each. Facebook users will be able to buy these gifts for friends, and the proceeds will go to the charity associated with the gift. This is essentially an extension of an increasingly popular offline concept the idea of giving a gift to a recipient’s favorite charity as a present.This isn’t the first time Facebook (facebook) is experimenting with virtual gifts for charity earlier this year, they launched a similar initiative upon hitting the 200 million member milestone. However, as Facebook moves further into gifts and payments, charity gifts may become a staple of the site.According a company spokesperson, “this is an alpha initiative and is not available to other charities at this time, but we may open up the program to new partners in the future pending the results. It is our goal to give our users a way to support the causes and issues that are important to them on a global scale.”
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