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  • 2019-11-06 (xsd:date)
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  • Does Facebook 'Write Off' Your Birthday Donations? (en)
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  • In November 2019, some people encountered a meme on Facebook that claimed the social media company was using the contributions its users were making to birthday fundraisers as a tax-deductible write-off for the company: While this meme contains four separate assertions, we'll focus mainly on the second one for this article, that Facebook is allowed to declare your donation for a tax write-off. Facebook launched its birthday-donation program in 2017, a feature that allows users to donate their birthdays to raise money for various charities. A few weeks before a Facebook user's birthday, the user receives a message asking about a possible fundraiser centered on that day. If the user decides to raise funds, he or she may choose from 750,00 non-profits, set a fundraising goal, and then share the fundraiser with Facebook friends. Here's how Facebook explained the feature in its announcement: When birthday fundraisers were initially rolled out, Facebook was retaining 5% of the donations to cover processing fees and fraud protection. The company did away with those fees at the end of 2017, so as of now 100% of such donations go to the designated charities. In August 2018, Facebook announced that it has helped facilitate $300 million in charitable donations. (The above-displayed meme claims in item 3 that Facebook can brag about its charitable donations, but we should note the company's announcement says People Raise $300M Through Birthday Fundraisers in First Year, not Facebook Raises $300M Through Birthday Fundraisers in First Year.) The claim that Facebook was able to use the $300 million raised by its users via birthday fundraisers as a tax-deductible write-off is not substantiated by any evidence. In fact, it seems that Facebook users and not the company itself are actually the ones who get to write off these donations, as Facebook states: We reached out to Facebook for comment on this meme and a spokesperson told us that these claims were completely false: While Facebook does not write off donations made by users, the company's birthday fundraisers have nonetheless spurred some criticism. In October 2018, some users reported that their one-time donations turned into recurring donations. (In fact, some billing irregularities occurred, but no users were actually charged more than they agreed to donate.) Tech Crunch also noted that this program has raised concerns about privacy, and one fundraising consultant was leery of the program for further distancing donors from charitable organizations: We've yet to come across any credible reporting, however, documenting that Facebook was using individual donations from users as a tax write-off. As such, we rate this claim False. (en)
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