GoFundMe

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GoFundMe Logo

GoFundMe states they are the "world's largest social fundraising platform"[1]. GoFundMe is a crowdfunding platform that allows people all over the world to fundraise for personal, business, and charitable causes [1]. GoFundMe leverages the internet’s reach to provide a space for individuals, teams, organizations, and nonprofits to raise the money they need to meet their goals [1]. GoFundMe was officially launched in 2010 by Brad Damphousse and Andrew Ballester, however, the platform originally started out as "CreateAFund' in 2008 [1][2]. Damphousse and Ballester upgraded their CreateAFund to GoFundMe and were valued at $600 million at the time of their sale to Accel Partners and Technology Crossover in 2015[2]. GoFundMe has grown to become the "world's largest social fundraising platform" and has raised over $9 billion since then[1].

Business Model

The platform allows users to create unique pages from which to post their causes. To start a fundraiser the user first sets their fundraiser goal, tells their story, and adds a picture or video [3]. After this step, the platform links itself with social media accounts to share the fundraiser[3]. GoFundMe currently supports posting on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Pinterest[4]. For users who do not have social media, GoFundMe generates an email template or messaging link for circulation[3]. People are then invited to donate to the fundraiser with a debit or credit card. After donations are received GoFundMe assists with thanking donors and the fundraiser can withdraw their funds.

Payments

GoFundMe does not collect any platform fee for fundraiser organizers. However, it does charge a 2.9% transaction fee with an additional $0.30 per donation[5]. When a payment is made through GoFundMe, the company itself does not process nor does it hold any of the funds that are withdrawn from donors' payment methods[6]. A third-party processing system is used to process all the donations, and the user must abide by this understanding GoFundMe does not have direct access to the payments from donations[6]. Given this information in the Terms of Services and with the user's agreement to these Terms of Services, all the information and content that is presented when donating or creating a funding campaign is at the user's own risk[6].

Record-Holding GoFundMe Campaigns

Over the 11 years since GoFundMe was founded, campaigns have received over 150 million donations[7]. Several GoFundMe campaigns have received the public's attention due to the large amounts of money they have raised. These record-holding campaigns are tracked in GoFundMe's annual Giving Report[7].

America's Food Fund

America's Food Fund was organized by actor Leonardo DiCaprio and businesswoman Laurene Powell Jobs at the request of GoFundMe in order to address the issue of food insecurity across the United States[8]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, America's Food Fund partnered with similar initiatives such as Feeding America, World Central Kitchen, Save the Children, No Kid Hungry, and Urban School Food Alliance in order to help feed vulnerable populations[8]. As of April 2021, America's Food Fund has raised just over $45 million of its initial $46 million goal and it stands as one of the highest-grossing campaigns in the GoFundMe's history[7].

Official George Floyd Memorial Fund

The George Floyd Memorial Fund was created by his Philonise Floyd in response to the killing of his brother George Floyd on May 25th, 2020[9][10]. The over $14 million raised by the campaign were used to cover funeral and burial expenses as well as counseling for family members while they sought justice for George Floyd's death[10]. The campaign broke GoFundMe's single-day funding record on June 2, 2020 when over 500,000 people donated to help the Floyd family in their time of need[7][11].

GoFundMe Medical Fundraiser

Medical Crowdfunding

Many of GoFundMe's most prominent fundraisers have been for medical expenses.[1]. GoFundMe states they are the leader in online medical fundraising and have helped raise over $650 million from 250,000 medical campaigns per year[12]. However, GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon has expressed his doubts with GoFundMe's medical crowdfunding system. In 2019, he said "“The system is terrible. It needs to be rethought and retooled. Politicians are failing us. Health care companies are failing us. Those are realities. I don’t want to mince words here. We are facing a huge potential tragedy,... We provide relief for a lot of people. But there are people who are not getting relief from us or from the institutions that are supposed to be there. We shouldn’t be the solution to a complex set of systemic problems"[13].

Ethical Implications

Medical crowdfunding has many benefits, however, researchers raise concerns about the unfair advantages it affords some individuals over others. Among the concerns raised by critics is the loss of patient privacy, widened health inequities, and the commodification of health care[14][15]. According to medical researchers, the commonality of medical crowdfunding is indicative of inadequate health care systems[16]. Since GoFundMe has no regulation for equal-access, funding comes from public perception of deservingness[16]. This then creates inconsistent outcomes in access to care.

Commodification

The competitiveness of medical crowdfunding facilitates funding as a commodity [17]. Rather than healthcare professionals determine the urgency of medical care, donators fuel market forces that determine which conditions and stories receive funding [17][18][14]. Resources are allocated by determinations such as social networks, stories, digital marketing skills, emotional appeals, and digital literacy.

Fraud

GoFundMe campaigns are commonly started by a caregiver, friend, family member, or individual in need of treatment. When creating their campaign there is no requirement for their health care professional to validate the information[17]. This leaves room for embellishment and exaggeration of claims to create more financial incentives to donate. Despite GoFundMe's terms of service agreements, multiple fraudulent GoFundMe medical campaigns have turned to criminal cases. A website named GoFraudMe.com holds a record of all fraudulent campaigns. In 2017, Jennifer Flynn Cataldo solicited funds for medical bills[14]. Cataldo collected more than $38,000 for cancer treatments she was not receiving before she was convicted of fraud [14]. Current policy does not account properly for the other instances of fraud that exist. Fraudulent claims should not be limited to cases that expose entire health fabrications. According to a study on medical crowdfunding fraud it can be identified in four key categories: faking/exaggerating personal illness, faking/exaggerating someone else's illness, impersonation, and misapplication of funds[19].

Perpetuating Inequalities

Since there is a saturation of medical campaigns, taking up one-third of all GoFundMe campaigns, reaching donation goals can become competitive[12]. GoFundMe provides support on how to create a great GoFundMe story by encouraging personal anecdotes, gratitude, and style choices for emphasis or urgency [20]. A study on the unique literacies required to successfully fundraise showed that digital literacy and large pre-existing social circles were required to demonstrate deservingness and worth[21]. The pressure of producing a worthy illness encourages the embellishment and exaggerating of symptoms to gather sympathy, even in terminal illness cases[21]. Another study analyzing the rhetoric used in successful GoFundMe medical campaigns found that great depth of need was important to be presented[18]. To meet this, tactics include providing graphic details such as ‘So far Celine has been in the OR [operating room] for surgery 3 times, each time having more and more of her leg tissue removed, making the wound larger and more severe'[18]. Stressing the impact of one's condition on dependents such as children or the elderly was also effective in examples like,‘Mommy Daddy save me' [18]. The study also concluded that these rhetorical patterns indicated donations were dependent on the quality and urgency of storytelling rather than medical need[18].

GoFundMe Policies

GoFundMe has begun taking considerable actions to protect the fundraisers and donators on their platform. GoFundMe's policy thus far is "It is not permitted to lie or intentionally deceive donors on GoFundMe for financial or personal gain"[22]. This statement leaves a place for open interpretation and omitting of truths. Rather than listing common mistakes made in campaigns that would be considered fraudulent, the cite lists exceptions. GoFundMe allows multiple campaigns to be set up for one purpose or beneficiary, images and names being used without permission of the family, and custody or familial disputes to be backed on their site [22].

GoFundMe Terms of Service

Like many of the Terms of Service in other platforms, GoFundMe habitually amends its Terms of Service, and it has the right to modify or change any part of the Terms of Service at any time. If by any means a user does not agree to the updated Terms of Service, the user can discontinue their use of GoFundMe unless they otherwise agree to the updated version [23].
GoFundMe updates its Terms of Service to keep the users up to date on the new changes and modifications. Users who are creating a campaign on their behalf or the behalf of anyone else as well as donors are encouraged to read through the Terms of Services as they become available to prevent any surprise or mishap on their end. GoFundMe's Terms of Services are created to answer questions that may arise as GoFundMe is used on its own terms.

Similar Platforms

Facebook birthday fundraiser prompt.[24]

There are many other crowdfunding platforms similar to GoFundMe, some of which include Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Fundly, and more recently, Facebook.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter's mission is "to help bring creative projects to life."[25] Similar to GoFundMe in that the website is for raising funding from individuals, the site differs in that it focuses on creative projects or startup ideas. Like GoFundMe, Kickstarter charges a fee for users to post their campaigns. Kickstarter's fee is a 5% platform fee and then a 3.0% + $0.20 payment fee.[26]

Like GoFundMe, Kickstarter has also been plagued with fraud. In a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, in a survey of almost 500,000 backers, it was found that 9% of Kickstarter projects did not deliver rewards (Kickstarter campaigns can offer rewards as incentive to donate), 8% of dollars pledged went to failed projects, 7% of backers did not get their chosen reward, and only 65% of backers agreed that their reward was delivered on time.[27]

Facebook Fundraising

Perhaps even more similar to GoFundMe than Kickstarter, is Facebook's more recent funding platform. Since 2013, Facebook has had a Donate button on any qualifying nonprofit pages.[28] Users could make a donation to a cause they cared about without leaving Facebook. Since then, Facebook has made it easier for users to post their own fundraisers. Users can now post fundraisers on their personal pages whenever, but are mostly encouraged to for special events, like birthdays. However, some of have criticized this move as 'solicitations' and 'insincere' as users feel like they are being overwhelmed by the number of fundraisers they are being presented.[29] Jeremy Littau, an associate professor at Lehigh University teaching social media and social action, pointed out that these sort of posts can feel like "slactivism," where users are just posting to show off on their social media, bringing up further ethical concerns about the real meaning behind these sort of posts.[29]

Indiegogo

TODO

Patreon

TODO

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 About gofundme. (2021, February 23). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/c/about-us
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mac, R., & Author, M. (2020, April 08). 20 things you didn't know About gofundme. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://moneyinc.com/gofundme/
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 How gofundme works. (2021, February 23). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/c/how-it-works
  4. ↑ Don't have Facebook? Here are other ways to share your gofundme. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011721327-Don-t-have-Facebook-Here-Are-Other-Ways-to-Share-Your-GoFundMe
  5. ↑ Pricing and fees. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/pricing
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 GoFundMe Terms of Services. Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/terms
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 The GoFundMe 2020 Giving report. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/2020
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 America's food Fund, organized By Americas Food fund led by Leonardo DiCaprio AND Laurene Powell Jobs. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/f/AmericasFoodFund
  9. ↑ Hill, E., Tiefenthäler, A., Triebert, C., Jordan, D., Willis, H., & Stein, R. (2020, June 01). How George Floyd was killed in police custody. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Official George Floyd Memorial Fund, organized by Philonise Floyd. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd?utm_source=giving-report&utm_medium=george-floyd-link&utm_content=fundraiser&utm_campaign=giving-report-2020
  11. ↑ Morgan Smith December 08, & Smith, M. (2020, December 08). More than 500k people helped Gofundme Set a SINGLE-DAY Giving record After George Floyd's Death. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://people.com/human-interest/more-than-500000-people-donated-to-gofundme-campaigns-on-june-2-setting-single-day-record/
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 All categories. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/start/medical-fundraising
  13. ↑ Young, J. (2019, June 19). Life and debt: Stories from Inside America's GOFUNDME health care system. Retrieved March 26, 2021, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gofundme-health-care-system_n_5ced9785e4b0ae6710584b27
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Shneor, R., & Torjesen, S. (2020). Ethical considerations in crowdfunding. Advances in Crowdfunding, 161-182. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-46309-0_8,
  15. ↑ Cross, J. (2006). MEDLINE, pubmed, PubMed Central, and the NLM. Editors' Bulletin, 2(1), 1-5. doi:10.1080/17521740701702115
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Sisler, J. (2012). Crowdfunding for medical expenses. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 184(2). doi:10.1503/cmaj.109-4084
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Kubheka, B. Z. (2020). Bioethics and the use of social media for medical crowdfunding. BMC Medical Ethics, 21(1). doi:10.1186/s12910-020-00521-2
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 Snyder, J., Crooks, V. A., Mathers, A., & Chow-White, P. (2017). Appealing to the CROWD: Ethical justifications in Canadian medical crowdfunding campaigns. Journal of Medical Ethics, 43(6), 364-367. doi:10.1136/medethics-2016-103933
  19. ↑ Zenone, M., & Snyder, J. (2018). Fraud in medical crowdfunding: A typology of publicized cases and policy recommendations. Policy & Internet, 11(2), 215-234. doi:10.1002/poi3.188
  20. ↑ How to write a gofundme story in 5 easy steps. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011597367-How-to-Write-a-GoFundMe-Story-in-5-Easy-Steps
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Berliner, L. S., & Kenworthy, N. J. (2017). Producing a worthy illness: Personal crowdfunding amidst financial crisis. Social Science & Medicine, 187, 233-242. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.02.008
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 How gofundme protects donors from fraudulent campaigns. (2019, December 13). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/c/safety/fraudulent-campaigns
  23. ↑ GoFundMe Terms of Service. (2020, July 29). Retrieved March 18, 2021, from https://www.gofundme.com/terms.
  24. ↑ Baig, E. C. (2019, December 9). [Facebook birthday fundraiser prompt.]. Retrieved April 2, 2021, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/12/09/tips-facebook-birthday-donations-giving-guilt/4203908002/
  25. ↑ K. (2021). About. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.kickstarter.com/about
  26. ↑ Sanchez, S. (2019, December 09). Best fundraising sites comparison. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.crowdfunding.com/
  27. ↑ Gershen-Siegel, J. (2019, April 05). Perpetrators of crowdfunding fraud can't hide from the law forever. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/329995
  28. ↑ Julia Campbell, J. (2019, January 20). What nonprofits need to know about facebook's fundraising tools. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.thebalancesmb.com/nonprofits-and-facebooks-fundraising-tools-3573628
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Smith, T. (2020, January 11). Fed up WITH FUNDRAISERS on Facebook? You're not alone. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2020/01/11/794919649/fed-up-with-fundraisers-on-facebook-youre-not-alone
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