Recently, it is noted that the Facebook company -including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp- devotes a part of its ongoing efforts to community and charity work, in order to improve people’s lives around the world, as they see community and charity work as one of social media platforms’ responsibilities towards individuals worldwide.

One of those efforts is that on February 9^th, 2018, Facebook announced at the Facebook Communities Summit in Europe the launch of “the Community Leadership Program“, which is a global initiative that invests in people building communities. Additionally, Facebook pointed out that they will commit tens of millions of dollars to the program, including up to $10 million in grants that will go directly to people creating and leading communities. In the same conference, Facebook also announced the launch of new tools for group admins and the expansion of their London-based engineering team that builds technology to help keep people safe on Facebook.

The Facebook Community Leadership Program is built to empower community leaders who are building communities around the world, as a response to community leaders’ needs to additional support, better tools, and access to funding. Accordingly, this week Facebook announced on its official blog the 115 people who have been selected into the Facebook Community Leadership Program as community leaders in residence, fellows and youth participants. It should be pointed out that since Facebook announced the program, they received more than 6,000 applications from all over the world.

As explained by Facebook; “A selection committee, which included employees as well as community experts from outside of Facebook, reviewed each application so we could identify leaders with a strong, clear and committed vision for their community.”

As confirmed by Facebook, they selected five participants as community leaders in residence to be awarded up to $1,000,000 to fund their community initiative. But the final amount received will be determined based on a budget proposal created and submitted by each resident as part of their program training.  These are the selected five community leaders and their plans, as published by Facebook:

• Adhunika Prakash built a community of more than 80,000 people in India who offer and receive support throughout their various stages of the breastfeeding journey. Her vision includes working with hospitals in India to help train and support parents, particularly in rural areas.
• Christian Delachet co-founded the Wanted Community as a place for people to offer daily support and mutual help to their neighbors both online and in real life. They have established local neighborhood groups across France and he plans to create a network of physical locations for community members to connect with one another.
• Latasha Morrison wants to equip the next generation to lead the way to racial reconciliation in the US. Her online network of small groups encourages people to meet in real life and she hopes to strengthen these connections through her residency.
• Noah Nasiali has brought more than 100,000 farmers across Africa together online in less than a year. His community helps farmers obtain knowledge and share information that has critical impact in the physical world of farming, including increased production and profits.
• Paula Pfeifer decided to break the social isolation caused by hearing loss by creating a community with others who share her experience. She brings people in Brazil who are deaf and use technology to hear together to offer emotional support and share useful information with each other.

In the same announcement, Facebook also added:

“The program will also include more than 100 fellows and youth participants who will receive up to $50,000 each to be used for their community initiative. This group includes leaders with diverse perspectives from different parts of the world, but they share a common goal of helping their communities thrive.”