So, one of my biggest pet peeves are sharing on social media of links to various GoFundMe accounts that are set up for silly reasons. I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with this mode of fundraising when someone has suffered some sort of tragedy such as a terribly injury or illness, an act of God such as horrible storm damage, or the sudden unexpected death of a caregiver or financial support person. HOWEVER, I do have a problem with people soliciting donations in this manner from complete strangers in order to finance their personal life decisions, so that they can "pursue their dream" or be a bit more comfortable. I believe that if there is something that one wants, one should be willing to work for it. I do not believe that a GoFundMe account qualifies as working for it.
An example pertinent to this forum - A friend of mine posted a link on Facebook today toa GoFundMe campaign for someone he knows. She is a single mother in her mid 20s, who is pursuing her BSN at a private college in town. She makes mention about how busy she is with school and caring for her child, and she also mentions the large student loans that she is accruing. (This college is known to accept anyone willing to sign on the bottom line. I'll bet she will come out with $80,000+ in student loans from them.) And she goes on to talk about how she qualifies for reduced fee childcare, but it is such a huge hassle to go through the certification process on a regular basis for this. (Apparently she has to do some volunteer work in order to qualify because the program does not count her clinical hours as classroom time.) She is raising money to pay for child care while she finishes school so that she will not longer need to go through the hassle of qualifying for reduced fee childcare...
I just have a problem with this for a wide variety of reasons. Am I the only one? I mean, she has every right to ask for money and I have every right to ignore it, but it just bugs me that someone is asking for money to pay for childcare so that she can avoid the hassle of qualifying for reduced fee childcare. This is just one example of what I consider to be silly requests...
The thing that I think is funny, is that the people starting these accounts don't realize that after they hit a certain amount, they are required to claim it on taxes (and pay on it) and also have to claim it as income.
So if these people actually get large donations and think they're getting "free money," the reality is that they are not and are probably screwing themselves in the long run.
Yes, I think such begging for money is disgusting.
But the people I want to slap even more are the suckers who give these people money. People that stupid deserve to be separated from their money ... but if they are just going to give it away, I wish they would choose more worthy causes -- Like me, for instance. I could use some extra money so that I could retire early.
It's the lazy, electronic equivalent of standing at the freeway onramp with a cardboard sign asking for a handout. At least go stand in the hot sun and rain while asking me to fork over my hard-earned money. Kidding (sort of).
I recently helped start a GoFundMe for a relative because they are going to be a part of a summer intensive and needed plane ticket money-this person is a teen and is a dancer; everything else was scraped and put into the tuition for the summer intensive; it was just a shortfall because a West Coast ticket costs a bit much, so yes, I support crowd funding to help fulfill dreams-to a point.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
While I will not be donating to any GoFundMe fundraiser or crowd-funding account any time soon, I see less vitriol expressed toward the other types of free rides.
The typical run-of-the-mill student who sets up a GoFundMe account is going to net no more than a few hundred dollars, or at the most, $1000. But by virtue of winning the ovarian lottery, privileged students born to extreme wealth in old money places like Darien, Connecticut or Newport, Rhode Island get to ride through 4+ years at Harvard or Princeton at the princely sum of $47,000 in tuition each year ($200,000 for an undergrad education at the Ivy League).
We can gripe about the laziness of students who engage in crowd funding efforts, but they are not the ones who get free rides through school. The students who were fortunate enough to be born to parents at the top of the economic rung are the true faces of the free ride through school.
Some young woman set one up for her Mom saying she needed cervical spine surgery but it cost $40000 and she can't pay for it. She's a lying sack of you know what because she has medicaid and they will pay for it. I even gave her some suggestions on what to do-if she was legit she would have said she would try them but she never did. Every so often I see her posting about it on the various FB pages for our local news media.She's only raised a few bucks.
And let's not forget Amanda Bynes and her gofund me account . She is asking for $5 million
because she was "fabulous" and should be living the life of a fabulous person(or something similar).
Some young woman set one up for her Mom saying she needed cervical spine surgery but it cost $40000 and she can't pay for it. She's a lying sack of you know what because she has medicaid and they will pay for it. I even gave her some suggestions on what to do-if she was legit she would have said she would try them but she never did. Every so often I see her posting about it on the various FB pages for our local news media.She's only raised a few bucks.
And let's not forget Amanda Bynes and her gofund me account . She is asking for $5 million
because she was "fabulous" and should be living the life of a fabulous person(or something similar).
I had a distant relative whose child is on Medicaid plus private insurance. He exploited his child's cancer for money. There were city-wide events for him. I tried to convince myself that maybe they wanted to make up for lost wages or something.... His mom is a stay at home mom, though. His dad didn't take off work. And they specifically said he money was for medical bills. It's a horrible world we live in, that people would stoop so low.
I think that's a stupid reason to have one of those accounts. I am a 22y/o single mom of a 16-month-old and a new grad. I worked my butt off the last four years as a CNA and put myself through a community college for my ADN. I had to get student loans to pay for what was left of my tuition and also supplement my income. Does it suck? Yes. Was it my choice to have a baby on my own? Sure was. So I sucked it up and did it alone and I will continue to work my tail off while I get my BSN. I feel for her but I myself couldn't accept something like that for my own choices made. And I wouldn't donate to it. Call me heartless lol.
I'd be willing to bet you any amount of money that she has every intention of applying for the reduced child care, and keeping the extra money she gets from the go fund me for herself. That is seriously tacky. Basically she's saying that she could actually get money for this for free, but instead of filling out a paper and including pay stubs, she'd rather take other people's hard earned cash. That's just plain old disgusting.
Yup, someone I went to high school with tried something like this. Her kid supposedly needed a T&A. They both had Medicaid. There are no out of pocket costs for people with Standard Medicaid in my state. Said girl created a Go Fund Me to raise money for her kid's "surgery". We were all pretty sure it was her new car fund. Fortunately no one gave her any money and after a few people commented "Doesn't Medicaid cover that?" she took the site down.
It will be a cold day in hell before I start a GFM account for school. I'll take my 17K in student loans and pay them myself, thanks.
I totally see how GFM type sites are awesome for the reasons the OP described. But if you are choosing to do something, you should fund it yourself. I know of 2 people that used crowdsourcing type sites to ask for donations for various things. One wanted money for nursing school tuition, the other wanted money to take an OPTIONAL trip to Italy with her classmates for culinary school. Needless to say, I did not donate.
I also know of a family that had their house burn down due to an unknown cause in my relative's neighborhood. They started a GFM account to help cover the costs of repairing their house that the insurance didn't cover. However, the way they went about it was really tacky. They sent and email out to the neighborhood with the link to the site, pretty much saying that they had 30 days to cough up some money to help bail them out before something or other happened. I don't quite recall what, but they had some deadline they had to meet. Not to mention this family had suffered a few other house fires previously...sounds kind of fishy to me.
A classmate of mine in high school had 2 children prior to eventually dropping out. The father left a year later. But she had looks. Unfortunately, a tragic car accident left her disfigured and the escort agency she worked for fired her. She turned to crowdfunding for the necessary plastic surgery to get things put right. 3 surgeries and 2 years later, she is now the top earning escort in my city. Now she is able to put food on the table for her family and live happily ever after.
mirandaaa
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The thing that I think is funny, is that the people starting these accounts don't realize that after they hit a certain amount, they are required to claim it on taxes (and pay on it) and also have to claim it as income.
So if these people actually get large donations and think they're getting "free money," the reality is that they are not and are probably screwing themselves in the long run.