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The People GoFundMe Leaves Behind (theoutline.com)
citadrianne shares a report from The Outline: President Donald Trump's proposed budget seeks to slash $54 billion from social services including programs like Medicaid and Meals on Wheels. As these resources dry up, crowdfunding websites will further entrench themselves as extra-governmental welfare providers in order to fill the gap. For a lucky few, these sites are a lifeline. For most people, they are worthless. Crowdfunding's fatal flaw is that not every campaign ends up getting the money it needs. A recent study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine found that more than 90 percent of GoFundMe campaigns never meet their goal. For every crowdfunding success story, there are hundreds of failures. "As many happy stories as there are in charitable crowdfunding, there are a lot of really worthy causes when you browse these platforms that nobody has given a cent to," Rob Gleasure, professor at the business school of the National University of Ireland, Cork told The Outline. "People haven't come across them."
Feller and Gleasure's report highlighted how fickle crowdfunding can be. Of all the Razoo campaigns started in 2013, they found, more than a third didn't receive any funding at all. According to their report, donors are more likely to give to campaigns that feature lots of pictures and accompanying text.
I'm going to autofund me some popcorn and wait for roman_mir and all the usual suspects to enthrall us with their wisdom.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
> A recent study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine found that more than 90 percent of GoFundMe campaigns never meet their goal. For every crowdfunding success story, there are hundreds of failures.
No, assuming you are focused on GoFundMe and the study is accurate, then for every crowdfunding success story, there are tens of failures.
Who decide which causes are "really worthy"? And how can anyone conclude that by simply "browsing"?
I'm disappointed that you didn't lead with a Trump angle on the previous Sci-Hub piracy article. It's like you didn't even try. This one was better.
"more than 90 percent of GoFundMe campaigns never meet their goal. For every crowdfunding success story, there are hundreds of failures." -- So around 9 failures, for every success story. How did we get to hundreds?
I assume that the mentality of the person who did the study was to compare it to conventional non-profits and the way they do fundraising. This is an important distinction because, under that model, there's a certain filtering process. If you've ever looked at a grant application, you'll see that the very nature of any of them tends to point out to you that there needs to be a valid reason for your request for funding. GoFundMe has no such filter, and as a result you get people like these three assholes or this snowflake. And those two are just what I came across by searching "Nintendo" on their site and seeing what came up in the first full set of results.
And then there's the other thing that the filtering process does...which is help reduce the level of scamming. GoFundMe also lacks any means to do this; you see a picture and a nice bit of text but there is absolutely nothing done to validate that either are true. As a result, scams are rampant, to such a degree that there's a whole site dedicated to uncovering the scams.
So, in short...I don't think there's anything wrong with the majority of GoFundMe campaigns failing to reach their goals. Most of them are just fucking ridiculous. And yes, I'm quite sure that some valid campaigns don't get funded as well...but 1, I would put some of the blame on the lack of any vetting process around the campaigns, and 2, that happens in the world of legitimate fundraising too. Posting a picture and type a few paragraphs describing your plight does not automatically guarantee you money...whether you are deserving or not...and that's just how life goes.
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The problem is that so many people need money because the cost of medical care is beyond their reach. The problem is that we live in a society where the ability to continue living is something that you have to "earn". The problem is that so many people are callous and devoid of empathy until it turns into a problem for them. The problem is that we refuse to care for our fellow humans.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
"more than 90 percent of GoFundMe campaigns never meet their goal. For every crowdfunding success story, there are hundreds of failures."
Assuming on GoFundMe success story = meeting the funding goal, the above claims are mutually exclusive.
Basic math seems to be too hard for idiots.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
Ah, but that 30 million dollars was spent on people working, and providing services, not layabout welfare bums.
If you were serious about caring about people, you'd realize you need to stop hating, and paying more money for actual workers doing things like making signs, airing commercials, and whatnot.
But no, no, you want them to donate to "causes" where the money will help people who don't work, never will work, and can't even be expected to work.
Kohath, the question is, why do YOU hate HARD-WORKING AMERICANS so much?
What we should really do is take all the money from welfare, and spend it on a system of perpetual elections.
FTFY
The problem is that so many people need money because the cost of medical care is beyond their reach. The problem is that we live in a country where the ability to continue living is something that you have to "earn". The problem is that so many people are callous and devoid of empathy until it turns into a problem for them. The problem is that we refuse to care for our fellow citizens.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Failure of a croudsource project is a feature, it indicates the lack of a market so that people don't start a company and commit to expenses when there is not a market for their product.
At least read the summary. This is for crowdfunding the cost of insulin, surgery or chemotherapy, not starting company.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Nice troll. Campaign work is not productive work.
Why is it that it seems the most prolific GoFundMes I see on the local news or shared on Facebook are for Medical Care. Shared by people that are firmly against the Government helping do exactly what they're wanting.
In the same breath the see no Irony in saying: "You libs just want to steal my money to pay for people that need it, but please sponsor Grandma's cancer treaments!!!!"
Productive work produces goods or services with economic value.
> Why do these people deserve money? They don't contribute to society, so they don't deserve society's help.
That's what we say about those corporations which only seek their profit, the rest be damned. Apparently when corporations do that, people come up and say "uh, ok, that's capitalism". And suddenly we're the "anti-capitalists".
Now if you fund someone to buy prosthetic legs so that s/he can go and work as a programmer, people get nervous -- possibly because they feel they'll look bad for not wanting to give -- and then start a campaign to smear the person in need as well as the few donors.
Nobody wants to waste resources. But there are costs and then there are investments, where you get something in return. If you want just money as ROI, life will be miserable. Because important work which does not yield immediate results will be left undone.
Education: the smart ones will find a way to get it.
Health: the weak should die, anyway.
Welfare: What? If someone is not sick, s/he should work; if s/he is sick look the phrase above.
Well, in the end, someone survives. And the survivors will carry a lot of resentment for not having received any kind of support. Of course, most will think along these lines again and a vicious circle is established. They will even post idiotic messages in sites with dysfunctional moderation mocking the idea of donating itself.
Why the hate though? Is everyone in your country as much of a jerk as you are, or are you an overachiever?
It's $54 billion from a $3.8 trillion budget. That's 0.14% of the entire budget. A budget where 75% is already spent on social services. And that $54 billion is 9% of what we borrow every year. The Federal Government is spending about $1,000 per MONTH per man, woman, and child in the US - and it's still not enough? The problem really isn't how much we spend, it's how much of it is simply wasted...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So, like Bobo then? He's pretty much resorted to begging.
The fact that people live in a country where people have to go to a website to have their health care needs met without revolting, is pretty disgusting.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
they already took out the folks just randomly asking for money. It's 90% of _medical_ campaigns that fail. But hey, you're uninformed rant probably made you feel better about not providing those 90% with life saving medical care and food/shelter while they're too sick to work, right?
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Unfortunately, the same features apply, only instead of starting a company, it's getting to live.
The summary says that Crowdfunding Fatal Flaw is that fact that "not every campaign ends up getting funded". THAT IS NOT A FLAW. This is how it should work. The failure rate, according to the cited research is 90%. That is the crowd determining what is good/necessary to fund. When people actually give their own money to a program, they can decide what important it is to them. When a bunch of Congressmen/women get together and decide to fund programs with somebody else's money, it becomes very easy fund things that add up to $18T in national debt and counting. The national debt is doing a hockey stick. Maybe Meals on Wheels and Medicaid aren't the right things to cut, IDK, but somebody's got to start cutting something.
There is a wide gap between expecting something for free and expecting your country to give you a fair shot.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
gotta build warplanes whose specs read like something out of Star Trek: The Next Generation and cost trillions to build. Fuck the poor, we gotta go kill, kill and kill people all over the world. Oh, God and Jesus is with us
If you are saying that 2/3 of the world exists in 2nd or 3rd world conditions due to a failure of charity, you are assuming that charity can overcome corrupt governments and overt oppression. There is a balance between personal responsibility, charity, and government. In many areas of the world, families operate under the premise that they must care for their own. The younger generations are raised by the older and then it flips to the younger caring for the older when the time comes. When the left says that government will take care of everyone, I don't know if they know they are lying or not. It's something they tell their base so they don't feel bad about not personally doing anything to help their neighbor.
If paying some people to break windows and others to fix them prevents them from robbing liquor stores you could argue that it's a net plus to society.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yeah, we used to call this "charity." Some people see the fundamental component of a society as government, and anything outside of it is just weaselly.
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> Why do these people deserve money? They don't contribute to society, so they don't deserve society's help.
Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin. Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed so well.
Asshole. What do you contribute to society? Besides running a treadmill and producing shit. Be very glad that you don't get what you truly deserve, as Hamlet once said.
Let's not forget taxes are taken at the barrel of a gun (you go to jail if you don't pay). Again, I could waste an hour of your time explaining why that's all bunk but it would be plaining to the wrong side of the brain. It wouldn't feel good like those myths do.
Erm, myth? You really do go to jail if you don't pay your taxes. Ultimately, laws are enforced at the point of a gun.
I.e., fraudulent projects don't get funded.
The people who hate private charity and private donations (and want to replace them with government programs) are progressives, socialists, and Democrats.
Sure, that must be why there were record breaking donations (from progressives) after Trump's election.
Cheap storage VM.
Crowdfunding is not about replacing welfare. It is about funding people that have a worthwhile idea or (as in Patreon) that produce content regularly that enough people want for direct funding, but that for numerous possible reasons the usual sources of funding are not interested in. Crowdfunding is _not_ charity.
Hence crowdfunding does not have any "fatal" flaw here, that is pure hyperbole of the most stupid kind.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... country. Healthcare is one of them. That's the plain, simple and painful truth. Crowfunding for healtcare being an option is about as obscene as it gets. Obamacare was the first step. Not the best healthcare system by a long shot, but at least a healthcare system, like every other normal country on the planet. What the Trump administration is doing now by undoing all that is borderline criminal.
I'm so glad I live in Germany. And even though I don't like the way things are going here all that much either, we're not half as fubared as you lot across the pond.
My 2 Eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
the problem is that folks have to ask for money to get medicine they need to _live_.
And I know this: Charity doesn't work. In the entire recorded history of mankind charity has never made so much as a dent in the poor's lot. Charity makes people feel better. It does not solve problems. If it did poverty wouldn't be a thing, and folks wouldn't be begging for medicine on a website.
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and that's fine and dandy. But it doesn't solve problems. The left isn't saying government will take care of everybody, we're saying _everybody_ will take care of everybody. Government just happens to be what we named the structure required to do it. We could also call it "Civilization". We're not lying. It's the only way out from the coming Dark Ages as the Uber wealthy seek to consolidate their power. Maybe it'll fail, but I know this: we'll be no worse off for the failure and a lot worse off for not trying.
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Planned Parenthood is not a political organization. The ACLU is a human rights organization. The big political donations are the GOP backing PAC's.
Cheap storage VM.
You must be joking, trying to claim that donations to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU arise from charitable impulses to help the poor. And you need to look up what PP and the ACLU actually do; a good look at their history would also be a good idea.
You need a reality check.
we're forcing you to take part in civilization. It's not different than being forced to get vaccinations or a license to drive. Your actions do not happen in a vacuum. When you deny people access to health care you make them desperate. Dangerous. Sooner or later a rabble rouser will come along, organize them, and turn them against you and everyone else for his own profit using populist rhetoric to cover his true motives. This has happened again and again. Hitler. Stalin. Mussolini. Mao. They're just the best known examples.
Civilization doesn't get to be an option. Take care of everybody or be taken 'care' of by them. You abandon the poor at your peril.
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Most campaigns are vaguely worded, lack a compelling sales pitch, and as others have stated above, provide little to no accounting for the donations. People aren't going to donate money because someone is asking for it.
Then there are the campaigns for people who have house fires - and expect $25,000 in donations - when in reality, insurance will eventually cover their losses. I never donate to these.
Why do rent-seeking industries deserve money?
They don't contribute to society.
By definition.
Planned Parenthood provides healthcare for women, all sorts. They are the go to location for poor and young women to get healthcare.
Cheap storage VM.