Facebook launches Drives, a new community-focused feature for helping those in need

Facebook’s launched a new feature on its Community Help platform (did you know that existed?), called Drives. And Drives… has nothing to do with automated cars or solid-state hardware — instead, it’s all about helping people in need, which is what this time of year tends to be about. Okay, and presents. It’s also about presents.

There’s just one catch, though — the feature isn’t available anywhere outside the States but, if there’s one thing we know about Facebook, it probably won’t stay geo-locked for very long.

Do what Drives you

Facebook’s Drives does exactly what it sounds like it would — it allows Facebook users to start drives for items like canned goods, clothing or other items that tend to be essential for people in need. A goal can be set, and it’ll come with a tracker so people seeing the post — which will show up in Community Help, as well as Timelines and News Feeds — know what’s still outstanding.

In practice, it’s a little like a Kickstarter campaign, hosted on Facebook, only the end result is a better life for the people being assisted and not a new kind of juicer or lunchbox that really doesn’t do anything new.

The feature was initially set to roll out in the States over a few weeks but Facebook has amended that timeline to a couple of days. The States is heading into mid-winter at the moment, it’s the festive season and the country has been hammered rather hard by COVID and the presidential election. Turns out, there are loads of people in need and loads of folks who’d like to help them. We’ll keep you posted on a similar rollout outside the US.