PLEADING FOR HELP FROM STRANGERS WITHOUT HAVING TO MAKE EYE CONTACT
In crowdfunding sites, the internet is providing an emboldening platform for people who do not have enough to appeal for a better life
‘Ican’t even believe I’m writing this, or asking for this, but this is the reality.” This appeal on Go Fund Me appeared last Monday, like thousands of others showing up each day on that site and others like it. The Nowakowski siblings of Milwaukee were asking for US$25,000 (895,000 baht) to help their parents, as their father struggled to pay for the care of their mother, who has dementia and mobility challenges and recently moved into an assisted-living home.
Their biggest goal is a wheelchair-accessible van to restore some sense of normalcy to their parents’ lives, allowing them to continue going to the farmers’ market and to see their favourite band, the Whiskey Belles.
The family’s situation is not life or death, or even as severe as imminent eviction or lack of electricity, like some of the requests on older sites like Modest Needs.
But it’s not in the same category as art projects or entrepreneurial ventures either, such as those you’d see on Kickstarter. Charitable fundraising campaigns or requests for race-for-the-cure pledges are a different type of plea, too.
Instead, the increasing number of personal appeals like this represent a muddled middle, where people who do not have enough ask for help to make life better. The requests lie somewhere along the murky wants-versus-needs continuum, but it would be hard to agree on exactly where they sit.
We are not used to this, the sheer nakedness of people putting a number to their problems and disclosing it to the world. But more financial transparency is almost always better than less, and the internet provides an emboldening platform. Then, it is up to everyone to push the button to give money or not.
Plenty of people are making the requests. Go Fund Me plays host to about 3,300 new personal campaigns (as the company refers to them) each day. The most common category is medical expenses, followed by memorials and funerals, general emergencies and education costs.
While not all requests are successful, people can keep whatever they take in, even if they don’t hit their goal (and also if they exceed it). As of September, the askers had raised more than $1 billion in the previous 12 months, though the for-profit company does take about 8% in fees for customers in North America. The money it transfers for personal campaigns is a gift, so the givers get no tax deduction, and the company does not guarantee that people are telling the truth. It urges people to give money only to those they “know and trust”.
So who are these people who are giving and taking?
There is something appealing about the idea that this is “really Midwestern”, as a writer for personal-finance website The Billfold suggested earlier this year. Indeed, to the money-talk-isn’t-polite crowd, crowdfunding is often something to sneer at. But those of us reared far from moneyed coastal communities keep right on with our barn raisings, virtual or otherwise.
It apparently isn’t always easy to figure out just how bold to encourage people to be, though. One service called Present Value began as a registry where engaged couples could just ask directly for cash in lieu of upgraded kitchen appliances and more traditional wedding gifts. The platform is still there, but the company has shifted its focus toward helping users figure out how to put the money they receive to work, whether in stocks or college savings.
Those gift requests were strictly wants. Other kinds of requests that are father down the necessity continuum began appearing on sites like Indiegogo a few years ago and complicated the proceedings. Yet it didn’t make much sense for users to see requests for help with something like fertility treatments next to fledgling art projects in need of money.
Plus, the branding was all wrong. “Indie” suggests film-making, and “go go” suggests movement and dancing, not eggs and sperm that are having trouble meeting — let alone funeral expenses or missed college tuition payments. Indiegogo has now moved the more acute financial requests to Generosity.com.
One advantage that all such sites offer is that you don’t have to look anyone in the eye when making your request. You can ask everyone without having to ask anyone in particular. It’s also less aggressive than making a one-on-one plea.
Or perhaps it’s just passive-aggressive. There is always the possibility that the person who is asking is making a list and checking it twice (and then 50 times more) to see who has pitched in and who has not. But Dana Nowakowski, who made the van appeal with her brother, Luke, said that she was not doing that at all.
“I dreaded doing it,” she said. “I’ve been writing it in my head every morning for the last couple of weeks, in the shower, getting ready, just dreading writing this story.”
So why do it? “There is an element of desperation,” she said. Hers, she explained, is a family that does not ask for things. They work for what they get and they buy what they can afford and that’s just how it has always been. They do not expect things or feel entitled to them.
But her parents, she said, had done so much for so many people for so long, baking cookies and making casseroles and giving rides and handing out gift cards. Her father is a retired teacher. And few people knew just how desperate things had become in recent weeks, when her mother moved into the dementia care home and the costs became clear.
“They were the first ones there for friends and family,” she said. “So I guess I kind of thought, ‘Hey, it’s their turn. It’s time for everyone to return the favour.’ ”