The use of individual fundraising to support basic needs has exploded in recent years, as online platforms such as GoFundMe have made it easier to reach potential donors from anywhere and the pandemic has resulted in lost jobs, health and lives. In addition to tools like GoFundMe, individuals now can share their Venmo links and have people donate to them directly for mutual aid.
In the first half of 2020 alone, researchers found 175,000 GoFundMe campaigns were launched. Unsurprisingly, they found the success or failure of campaigns mirrored larger social and economic inequalities. More than 40% of fundraisers they looked at received no support at all. The most successful campaigns were among people with the highest educational and income levels, not the ones with the greatest need.
A look at some of the active Seattle-area GoFundMes reveals our country’s dirty little open secret: a huge chunk of fundraisers are for medical expenses or related medical needs. And the word you see over and over? Cancer.
One study found that 42% of people with cancer depleted their assets within two years.
In 2019, the CEO of GoFundMe, Tim Cadogan, said a third of the fundraisers on their site were to pay for medical costs. The following year the platform created a category covering rent, food and bills.
In 2021, arguing for federal pandemic relief, Cardogan said himself this is not what GoFundMe should exist to do. “ … our platform was never meant to be a source of support for basic needs, and it can never be a replacement for robust federal COVID-19 relief that is generous and targeted to help the millions of Americans who are struggling,” he wrote.
Also, the dynamics of this kind of fundraising rewards certain types of needs over others. While physical health issues are seen as sympathetic causes, you don’t see a lot of fundraisers for substance-use disorders or mental illness. (...)
I know I will hear from readers who say that people should just take “personal responsibility” and pull themselves up by their bootstraps vs. changing the system so it protects more people from falling through the cracks. But all it takes is one cancer diagnosis, for example, for any of us to fall through.
In 2019, the CEO of GoFundMe, Tim Cadogan, said a third of the fundraisers on their site were to pay for medical costs. The following year the platform created a category covering rent, food and bills.
In 2021, arguing for federal pandemic relief, Cardogan said himself this is not what GoFundMe should exist to do. “ … our platform was never meant to be a source of support for basic needs, and it can never be a replacement for robust federal COVID-19 relief that is generous and targeted to help the millions of Americans who are struggling,” he wrote.
Also, the dynamics of this kind of fundraising rewards certain types of needs over others. While physical health issues are seen as sympathetic causes, you don’t see a lot of fundraisers for substance-use disorders or mental illness. (...)
I know I will hear from readers who say that people should just take “personal responsibility” and pull themselves up by their bootstraps vs. changing the system so it protects more people from falling through the cracks. But all it takes is one cancer diagnosis, for example, for any of us to fall through.
by Naomi Ishisaka, Seattle Times | Read more:
Image: GoFundMe
[ed. See also: When GoFundme Gets Ugly (The Atlantic):]
"Part of the allure of GoFundMe is that it’s a meritocratic way to allocate resources—the wisdom of the crowd can identify and reward those who most need help. But researchers analyzing medical crowdfunding have concluded that one of the major factors in a campaign’s success is who you are—and who you know. Which sounds a lot like getting into Yale." (...)
"Part of the allure of GoFundMe is that it’s a meritocratic way to allocate resources—the wisdom of the crowd can identify and reward those who most need help. But researchers analyzing medical crowdfunding have concluded that one of the major factors in a campaign’s success is who you are—and who you know. Which sounds a lot like getting into Yale." (...)
"GoFundMe campaigns blend the well-intentioned with the cringeworthy, and not infrequently bring to mind the “White Savior Industrial Complex”—the writer Teju Cole’s phrase for the way sentimental stories of uplift can hide underlying structural problems. “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice,” Cole wrote in 2012. “It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.” (...)
“It’s not difficult to imagine that people who are traditionally portrayed as more deserving, who benefit from the legacies of racial and social hierarchies in the U.S., are going to be seen as more legitimate and have better success,”... At the same time, the ubiquity of medical crowdfunding “normalizes” the idea that not everyone deserves health care just because they’re sick.... “It undermines the sense of a right to health care in the U.S. and replaces it with people competing for what are essentially scraps.”
“There’s a lot of secrecy and shame around the ones that don’t receive funding. If it’s a way to perform need, how must it feel to put yourself out there and not receive anything in return?”
“There’s a lot of secrecy and shame around the ones that don’t receive funding. If it’s a way to perform need, how must it feel to put yourself out there and not receive anything in return?”
