An Overview of Facebook’s Community Help Tool

In your greatest time of need — especially during or after a natural disaster — it’s easy to feel powerless and alone in the world. We so often connect through social media pages to share funny memes, photos, our political outrage, or news clips. But what about those times when it really matters? When it’s important to galvanize a community to pool their resources and actually make a difference in the lives of those who need it? Facebook’s answer to these questions comes in the form of the Community Help tool.

What is Facebook’s Community Help tool?
The Community Help tool is something people should definitely be made aware of. It has a lot of potential to connect those who can and want to provide aid to those who need it. It’s not that most people opt out of helping; the truth is that a great amount of people are inherently good samaritans who simply aren’t aware of crises around the world, or who just don’t know how to help.

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The Facebook tool is turning that around. Expanding on their already invaluable Safety Check feature, which monitors people’s safety status during a crisis, the new tool will enable avenues of assistance. During the most recent Social Good Forum in New York, Facebook announced the tool will be launching in January.

How does it work?
A user in need of help will first activate the Safety Check feature. As mentioned, this allows them to reach out to others on the platform. In addition to a dedicated page for monitoring the safety status of people facing a crisis, there will also be tools for people to specify the aid they need. People who want to help can post about the support and services they can provide, and all a user will have to do is select “Find Help” and then choose from a list of resources they need, such as food, water, shelter, and so forth. Those who are offering aid can also contact people directly via messaging.

Upgrading past community efforts
The idea is not pure innovation, but rather builds off of what communities have already been trying to accomplish during previous crises. Communities affected by disaster have created Facebook groups in order to connect and communicate with others in the area. The premise was similar: alert one another with updates, commiserate, reach out for support, or lend a hand to your neighbor. Unfortunately, these weren’t as successful as intended. Groups tend to be disorganized, and no one wants to sift through mounds of posts to locate the relevant information they need.