Facebook Gaming launches charity livestreams
25 streamers will be raising money for causes during Giving Tuesday.
Just in time for Giving Tuesday, Facebook is introducing new features for charity livestreaming on its Facebook Gaming platform. Gamers who broadcast on Facebook Gaming will be able to set up fundraising programs to raise money for a variety of worthwhile causes. A handful of popular streamers will be using the feature today, and Facebook will make it available to gaming creators in the near future.
To highlight the new tools, Facebook is tapping 25 streamings who will run charity broadcasts during Giving Tuesday. DangerousThing aka DT, DiMez, TheMissesMae and X-Bit Gaming are among the featured creators who will be participating in the event. The streams should be discoverable through Facebook's gaming portal.
Facebook said it would start rolling the fundraising tools out to more gamers soon, likely with the bigger names on the platform getting access to the features first. Once more widely available, gamers will be able to set up their stream to raise money for causes through the streamer dashboard. They will be able to pick the charity that will receive the funds, set donation goals and track donations on stream with a progress bar. The streams will highlight viewers who donate with alerts overlaid on the stream and in chat. Facebook didn't provide a timeframe for when the tools would be made available to more streamers.
To start, Facebook is offering just a handful of organizations to choose from, including Autism Speaks, Call Of Duty Endowment, The Humane Society of the United States and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The company said it plans to expand the list of organizations that gamers can choose from when setting up their charity stream.
