GoFundMe

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GoFundMe
Crowdfunding
languages English , German , French , Spanish , Italian
operator GoFundMe, Inc.
editorial staff Brad Damphousse
Andrew Ballester
Registration Redwood City , California , USA
On-line May 10, 2010 (currently active)
https://de.gofundme.com/

GoFundMe is a US company based in Redwood City , California , whose business model is the brokerage of donations via an Internet platform . The collection of donations is based on the crowdfunding principle. This means that a large number of private individuals can donate relatively small amounts for a specific purpose. The recipients of the money create a website on the platform that explains the purpose of the donation. Often these are specific life events for which money is collected. These events cover a broad spectrum, from positive things such as celebrations or doctorates to difficult circumstances in the sense of accidents and illnesses, which in countries with incomplete social insurance such as the USA can certainly threaten private livelihoods. In the first ten years - 2010-2020 - were more than 9 billion US dollars mediated by more than 120 million donors.

history

The company was founded in May 2010 by Brad Damphousse and Andrew Ballester in San Diego , California . Both had previously founded Paygr , an online marketplace where members could offer services to private customers. In 2008 they expanded their activities to include the "CreateAFund" website, which can be considered a rudimentary forerunner of GoFundMe. After various functional extensions and updates to the platform, the website was relaunched under its current name on May 10, 2010 . The concept was well received by users and the platform has been growing ever since. For example, the company raised $ 3 billion with its platform by March 2017 with monthly donations of up to $ 140 million at the time and generated an annual profit of $ 100 million. At the same time, the company became the largest of its kind. By 2020, the total amount of donations has increased further and has now tripled.

In June 2015, Damphousse and Ballester parted ways with their majority stake and sold their shares, valued at $ 600 million at the time, to a consortium of investment firms Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures . As a result, the two founders resigned from active management of the company and only support it in an advisory capacity, or in the case of Ballester as a member of the supervisory board. Under the new leadership, GoFundMe then took over its competitor CrowdRise in January 2017 .

Since the end of 2017, the company has also been active in Germany with an office in Berlin .

functionality

In order to collect money, the donation recipients create a subpage on the GoFundMe homepage as described above. There they describe their concerns, define the amount that should be reached, if possible, but not mandatory, and add photos and videos to the issue. The focus of the platform's business model is on personal life events. Examples in the home market are things such as medical bills, the raising of training costs and tuition fees , or the financing of court costs. In general, however, general project financing is also possible, as it may be necessary for artists, inventions or company start-ups.

After the subpage has been created, the platform offers an integration of this into various social networks such as Facebook , Twitter and Instagram and specifically motivates the recipients to generate viral attention for their campaign. E-mails with a link to the donation page can also be sent directly via the platform . Potential donors can then transfer an amount of their choice using the usual online payment methods. Payments via credit card , Giropay , Sofortüberweisung , Paypal and others are offered. Following their payment, donors can then interact with the campaign operator, track the donation status and, for example, leave comments on the donation page.

From the donations received, GoFundMe retains a flat fee of 0.30 cents per transaction and a percentage of total sales, which varies from country to country and is usually 2.90%.

Financing medical treatment costs

As a result of the design of the US health system , in which health insurance is largely voluntary and privately organized, the proportion of donations raised to cover missing insurance benefits is continuously increasing. Critical voices increasingly see this as a compensation for structural errors in the health system and criticize the change in its financing away from structured solutions to arbitrary handouts. According to GoFundMe, it is now the leading provider of online medical donations and every third campaign on the platform is intended to collect funds for costs that private individuals incur through medical treatment. In total, this was around 250,000 campaigns in 2018 that generated sales of 650 million US dollars.

Rob Solomon, the current CEO of GoFundMe, said in early 2019: “ When we started in 2010, it [GoFundMe] wasn't purposefully set up and built to be a substitute for medical insurance. We weren't ever set up to be a health care company and we still are not. But over time, people have used GoFundMe for the most important issues they are faced with. "( Rob Solomon , German:" When we started 2010, it [GoFundMe] was not intentionally created and built as a replacement for health insurance. We were never founded as a health care company and we are not today. But over time, they have People used GoFundMe for the most important problems they are confronted with. ”) Half a year later, he added in an interview that the increasing procurement of treatment costs on the platform is the result of serious problems in the US healthcare system :“ The system is terrible [...] 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. "( Rob Solomon , German:" The system is terrible, [...] there are people who do not get any support from us or from the institutions that should be there for them. We should not be the solution for a complex group of systemic problems. ")

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Moneymaking Ideas. Bloomberg Businessweek, archived from the original on June 24, 2012 ; accessed on June 16, 2016 .
  2. ↑ How to fundraise. GoFundMe, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Rachel Monroe: When GoFundMe Gets Ugly. November 1, 2019, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b About GoFundMe. crowdfunding.de, accessed on May 30, 2020 .
  5. ^ Susan Adams, Free Market Philanthropy: GoFundMe Is Changing The Way People Give To Causes Big And Small. Forbes.com, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Rip Empson: Paygr Looks To Combine Facebook And PayPal In A Marketplace For Local Buying And Selling. Tech Crunch, June 7, 2011, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Big News: CreateAF and Has Joined Forces With GoFundMe. Create A Fund, archived from the original on June 22, 2012 ; accessed on June 21, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Soliciting Donations From individuals. Crowdfunding Web Watch 2012, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  9. ^ Ainsley Harris: How Crowdfunding Platform GoFundMe Has Created A Three Billion Digital Safety Net. March 3, 2017, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Douglas MacMillan and Gillian Tan: GoFundMe Founders to Reap a Fortune in Buyout. Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2014, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Celena Chong: A group of investors is buying GoFundMe. Business Insider, June 24, 2015, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Ingrid Lunden: GoFundMe acquires CrowdRise to expand to fundraising for charities. Tech Crunch, January 10, 2017, accessed May 29, 2020 .
  13. ^ Raising Money For Medical Expenses. Daily Crowdsource, archived from the original on June 22, 2012 ; Retrieved June 21, 2012 .
  14. ^ Web Pleas Help Immigrants Pay For College. USA Today, September 13, 2011; accessed May 30, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Kevin Reed: Fund drive to pay Chelsea Manning's court fines raises $ 267,000 in two days. World Socialist Web Site, March 16, 2020, accessed May 30, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Rilee Chastain: Live from IFC 2018: The social fundraising data report for nonprofits. fundraising.crowdrise.com, accessed May 30, 2020 .
  17. ↑ GoFundMe Help Center, Campaign Creation A to Z. GoFundMe, Inc., accessed May 30, 2020 .
  18. ↑ GoFundMe Help Center, Donations. GoFundMe, Inc., accessed May 30, 2020 .
  19. ↑ GoFundMe Help Center, GoFundMe Fees. GoFundMe, Inc., accessed May 30, 2020 .
  20. ^ J. Sisler: Crowdfunding for medical expenses . In: Canadian Medical Association Journal . tape 184 , no. 2 , January 9, 2012, p. E123-E124 , PMID 22231688 , PMC 3273528 (free full text).
  21. ^ A b Carolyn McClanahan: People Are Raising $ 650 Million On GoFundMe Each Year To Attack Rising Healthcare Costs. Forbes Magazine, August 13, 2018, accessed June 20, 2020 .
  22. ↑ a b Megan Cerullo: Their twins' medical costs total $ 750,000 - each. They and thousands of others are counting on GoFundMe. CBS News, January 30, 2019, accessed June 20, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Sam Baker: People are increasingly turning to GoFundMe for medical bills - and the company's own CEO realizes that's a huge indictment of the US healthcare system. Business Insider, January 17, 2019, accessed June 20, 2020 .
  24. ↑ Jeffrey Young: Life And Debt: Stories From Inside America's GoFundMe Health Care System. HuffPost, June 10, 2019, accessed June 20, 2020 .