San Francisco, Nov 23 (IANS): Facebook on Monday kicked off its season of giving campaign, announcing that it will match up to $7 million in eligible donations to US nonprofits made on its platform.

The company said that it will soon begin testing a new way for people to create and share nonprofit fundraisers directly within their feed.

"Today in the US, we're launching Drives, a new Community Help feature that makes it easier to collect food, clothes and other necessities for people in need," said Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook.

"We're starting to roll it out now, and it will be available more widely in the coming weeks".

On Facebook and Instagram, people have raised more than $100 million for Covid-19 causes and $65 million for those supporting racial justice this year.

"More than 3.9 million people have visited our Community Help page to find ways to give and receive help," Sandberg said in a blog post.

One can start a fundraiser of his or her own on Facebook, or share or donate to an existing one.

"We're also making new fundraising tools available on Instagram. Donation stickers have long been a popular way to share important causes, and we recently rolled out Instagram Live fundraisers and personal fundraisers too," the Facebook COO noted.

Whatever is raised for nonprofits on Facebook and Instagram goes directly to the organisations, she said, adding that all the donations are securely processed by Facebook Pay.