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HOW TO HELP OUT FELLOW NEIGHBORS DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC USING FACEBOOK

Emily Dalton Smith

Director of Social Impact Product, Facebook

Since the beginning of the spread of the Coronavirus, and especially as people started practicing social distancing, we’ve seen them turn to Facebook to connect with and take action to help their communities. We also know that often the people who are in the best position to help are those physically closest – neighbors in their community. We’ve seen people who are the most vulnerable or at the frontlines of the epidemic use Facebook to get help and support with urgent needs.

To make it as easy as possible for people to support one another, Facebook is launching Community Help, a destination for people to help their neighbors most impacted by COVID-19.  There, people can request or offer help in their community, such as delivering groceries to elderly neighbors or volunteering to distribute food through local food banks and donate to fundraisers. In this satellite interview, Emily Dalton Smith, Director of Social Impact product at Facebook, will discuss this new resource and talk about the features including:

• People can access Community Help (which is a part of the COVID-19 Information Center) at www.facebook.com/covidsupport
• There they can:

• • Offer help: respond to requests or create a new post to let others know how you can help. For example, we’re seeing people, businesses, and nonprofits offering help with everything from running errands  (i.e. groceries and prescriptions), mental health support, financial assistance and free meals to those who are out of work, and offering baby food and supplies to parents in need.
  • Request help: post what you need and search posts to see if anyone is offering the help you’re looking for. For example, we’re seeing people looking for medical and cleaning supplies, and nonprofits seeking volunteers for a variety of areas from food distribution to blood donations.
  • Donate to help COVID-response efforts: donate through the  UNF/WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund Facebook Fundraiser  and the Combat Coronavirus with the CDC Foundation Facebook Fundraiser (US-only), where Facebook is matching donations, up to $10M to each fundraiser. Also in the coming days you will be able to discover local fundraisers to donate to.

• Community Help will first be available in 5 countries: US, UK, France, Canada, and Australia, and is ever expanding to additional countries.

MORE ABOUT EMILY DALTON SMITH: 
Emily Dalton Smith is the director of Social Impact product. In this role, Emily leads teams that build products, such as Crisis Response, Charitable Giving, Health and Mentorship, that help people come together to support each other in times of need. Previously, she led strategic partnerships for Social Good at Facebook, where her team worked with the world’s leading nonprofits to help raise funds and awareness for their organizations. Prior to joining Facebook, Emily was a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she managed investments in personalized learning technologies, and a director and special assistant to the provost at Arizona State University. She sits on the advisory boards of the Adult Literacy X Prize and ThinkCERCA, and holds degrees from Arizona State University and the University at Buffalo.

Produced for Facebook