Facebook Causes

Causes on Facebook was built by Project Agape. Using Causes, any Facebook user with a little passion and initiative can create a cause, recruit their friends, keep everybody up-to-speed on issues, and, most importantly, raise money directly through the cause for any registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit or presidential campaign.

Causes on Facebook provides the tools so that any Facebook user can leverage their network of real friends to affect positive change. The goal of this is "equal opportunity activism." This is a natural evolution of social networking. Leveraging real world social networks is an important part of activism, fundraising, and political campaigning. This is especially true of grassroots activism, local-chapter style nonprofit organizations, and the walks/runs used by many charities to raise money.

Facebook can process the donations automatically via credit card, tally the results, and report the donation activity via a public "scorecard" in the cause. This allows us to reward people who grow their causes, donate, and successfully raise money.

Starting a Cause

Once you click the 'start cause' button you are redirected to Project Agape's page to start the process. There are 5 sections of information you need to fill out.

Basic information: Includes cause name, mission, description, and positions.

Category & Tags: Includes primary and secondary categories and tags applicable to your cause.

Geography: Allows you to choose the region that your cause affects, i.e., global, United States, non U.S. country.

Picture: Here you have to select a picture or logo to go with your cause. You cannot proceed unless you add an image.

And in the last step you can choose a nonprofit organization that will benefit from your cause. You can either choose one yourself or let the application match you with one.

Once you have completed all 5 steps, you will be asked to confirm that all the information is correct and to add a contact email address. Your cause has finally been created and will be added to the causes directory. You can either start by inviting your friends to join or just wait for people to add themselves to your cause.

Viewing Your Causes

If you go to the Causes page in Facebook, you can view the complete statistics for the causes that you support. You can see how many Facebook members worldwide have joined the cause and how much moneey has been donated so far. For example, the 'Stop Global Warming' Cause has over 600,000 members worlwide.

The options in this section are: 1) to hide the Cause from your profile 2) invite others to your Facebook Cause 3) donate to the Cause or 4) Leave the Cause

On the right handside of the Facebook Causes page, you can a section called 'My Achievements'. This lists: 1) the number of members that you have recruited to your cause 2) the amount of money donated and 3) the amount of money raised

Under this, is a section called 'Friend's Causes', this will show you a list of your friends Causes, with the amount of friends supporting the Cause shown underneath.

Below this is the 'Friend's Hall of Fame', which shows which your friends are top recruiters for their Cause.

Finding More Causes

At the bottom of the Facebook Causes page is the section where you can find Causes. They come under the following categories: 'Animals', 'Art &Culture', 'Education', 'Environment', 'Health', 'Human Services', 'International', 'Public Advocacy', 'Religion', 'Political Campaigns'.

If you click on the 'Browse Causes' tab, it will display the top 5 Facebook Causes by total members. Currently, 'Support Breats Cancer Research' is number 1.