The crowdfunding platform GoFundMe announced this week that it had hit a milestone: raising $30 billion since its founding in 2010. “This is a testament to the tremendous impact that comes from people asking and offering help,” CEO Tim Cadogan said in a news release.
That’s up from $9 billion in 2019, something that can be attributed to everything from increased public awareness to acquisitions that include the nonprofit platform fundraiser Classy. Yay for GoFundMe! We want to be helpful to people in need, and the site offered up another way for us to do so. But GoFundMe is also evidence of an enormous societal failure. Its virtual begging tin comes with enormous side effects. Not only does it allow us to ignore the gaping holes in our social safety net, but it permits us to feel as if we’re a generous nation while we are ignoring those holes.
GoFundMe is evidence of an enormous societal failure. Its virtual begging tin can comes with enormous side effects.
But nothing could be further from the truth. Americans like to congratulate themselves on the fact that they give more to charity than other nations, but GoFundMe’s success is directly attributable to our refusal as a nation to grapple with why so many Americans are having trouble paying for everything from children’s cancer treatments to school lunches.
Even as we click “Donate Now” on something like “Let’s Kick Claudia’s Colon Cancer in the Butt,” we are sticking our fingers in a dike of overwhelming need. Take medical care, something the company acknowledges is the largest category on its site. In the United States alone, we spent $471 billion on out-of-pocket medical expenses in 2022, the last year figures are available.
According to a poll released late last year by KFF, 1 in 4 Americans say they or a family member experienced difficulty recently paying for needed medical care, while 20 % say they didn’t fill a prescription because it cost more than they could comfortably afford….
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