Personal experiences would be great … looking for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Is one better than the other? Does it depend on what the money is for? Basically, my mom fell and broke her leg last night. She will need to have surgery to fix it. She is self-employed and has no insurance. She cleans houses, so I’m looking to raise funds for living expenses while she’s unable to work. (No, I’m not asking for money here; just looking for advice on how to do it.) Thanks!
This board has had some unfortunate run-ins with those sites, so don’t be surprised that nobody is rushing to discuss them.
It is a recent wound to the SDMB community.
Above all, be brutally honest about what you need, why you need it, and do not over-reach.
Check out Modest Needs. That’s crowdfunding more in line for personal/medical. Indiegogo and the like are more for getting businesses or creative endeavors off the ground.
We’ve had some success with it for animals who needed some kind of extraordinary medical care.
I’ve never been the one to mess with the actual sites, but I know the last one we used was www.youcaring.com . Kickstarter and some of the others are purely for business or projects, I think. www.Giveforward.com is just for medical expenses. www.Gofundme.com and www.fundrazr.com are for anything. www.indiegogo.com is for anything and lets you add perks (so if someone donates $20 you send them a t-shirt… that sort of thing).
Thing is, you have to promote your own cause. For something like medical/living expenses, it’s just an online donation box. There’s no cool project and no perks for donating, so people won’t do it on their own. You have to promote it and tell people about it and such. And, like usedtobe said, be totally up-front about what the money will go for. But no money will come in unless you go out and ask for it- at church, on Facebook, from the people whose houses your mom cleans, and so forth.
Good luck! Hope your mama feels better!
Thanks everybody. That’s exactly the information I was looking for. I have contacted most of her clients and I will be reaching out to her church as soon as I can figure out who best to contact.