Go Fund Yourself: How personal crowdfunding is taking a turn for the worse

On November 5, 2013, a young girl in Ohio was in a car accident that would change her and her family’s life forever. Several serious injuries and subsequent surgeries put quite a financial strain on her family, but they refused to give up. Through a campaign on GoFundMe, and the generosity of family, friends and strangers, Amber Lillibridges’s family was able to raise over $5,000 dollars to assist with medical bills. Amber has made some outstanding progress, but the road ahead of her is still paved with more surgeries and therapy. The donations made to Amber’s GoFundMe campaign will make the difference in her recovery.

GoFundMe is a crowd-funding website, which can make a huge difference in people’s lives. Amber and her family could not have afforded the medical bills that resulted from this tragic accident without it. This is exactly the type of story that one might expect to find on a site like this. This is a happily ever after.

From raising money for tuition to raising money for a spring break trip to Cancun, GoFundMe has become a go-to source for college-age students looking to fund personal goals. But not all goals are created equal.

Bianca Marte, a Rutgers junior majoring in Communications and Sociology, also used GoFundMe to finance something that she couldn’t on her own.

“I was having financial problems and couldn’t afford the remainder of my tuition bill,” said Marte. “I had tried almost all resources at the university to see if I could find some help and no one answered my emails or phone calls.”

When she was 12, Bianka and her family moved from the Dominican Republic to Paterson, NJ, where she and her siblings were afforded better educational opportunities. This semester, as a student at Rutgers, she realized she could no longer afford tuition. “Coming from a family that has had literally nothing, I know the importance of helping the community and give back,” she says in her GoFundMe biography.

“I was having financial problems and couldn’t afford the remainder of my tuition bill,” said Marte. “I had tried almost all resources at the university to see if I could find some help and no one answered my emails or phone calls.”

Bianka’s situation was looking pretty grim. However, after hearing of it through a friend, Bianka created a GoFundMe account and was surprised by the results.

“I emailed and sent a text to everyone I knew and I was surprised to see how fast people worked together to help me out,” said Bianka. “I posted my site at 12 AM, went to sleep, woke up at 10 AM and I had already reached my goal. It was incredible.”

Bianka Marte’s profile on GoFundMe.com includes a personal bio and recent donations. She raised a total of $612.

In this instance, and in theory, crowdfunding is an amazing concept. It is a way for people to unite for a common cause, even one to which they are only connected by a sense of compassion. It is accessible, easy to use, and social media friendly, which is an important feature, especially when trying to engage a young audience.

The ease of use and the positive feelings associated with helping someone through a tough situation have caused the popularity of sites like GoFundMe to skyrocket. According to Forbes.com, crowdfunding campaigns are expected to raise over $5 billion dollars this year alone.

However, something sinister has begun to creep in among these feel-good campaigns. People have started to take advantage of the generosity of strangers and to create campaigns that have less to do with necessity and more to do with personal desires. Alongside Amber’s admirable story of survival and Bianka’s struggle to pay her term bill, for instance, can be found a woman asking for money to buy a new computer so she can “catch up on Breaking Bad.”

These types of frivolous campaigns serve to undermine everything that is good and respectable about GoFundMe. However, people continue to push the boundaries between asking for donations and begging. Gone are the days, apparently, in which people worked for the things that they wanted (material or otherwise). Want to go on a trip to Vegas? Ask your friends! Want to make a film? Have your family fund it! Or, better yet, complete strangers!

Notice the conspicuous absence of the word “need” in the above paragraph.

Crowdfunding is alluring in part because it allows people to be a part of something bigger than themselves; something inherently good and selfless. It stands to reason, then, that a campaign posted on GoFundMe should also be something bigger than oneself. It should be a goal that is unreachable without the help of friends, family and strangers.

These types of frivolous campaigns serve to undermine everything that is good and respectable about GoFundMe.

By asking others to fund something that could conceivably be financed on your own, you are asking them to put your dreams, goals, aspirations, and desires above their own. You are forcing the assumption that you are more important and more valuable. Thus, the essence of what makes GoFundMe and other crowdfunding ventures so special is lost. Selflessness has turned to selfishness.

If this trend continues, what is to become of people who truly need help? Will Bianka’s campaign to fund her education be lost amongst a mass of people outsourcing the cost of a new pair of Nikes? Will Amber be left to shoulder the expense of her unforeseen medical bills on her own due to the laziness and selfish attitudes of others? Or will sites like GoFundMe simply devolve into a community of people looking for handouts, completely devoid of the good intentions with which it began?