At What Point is Crowd Funding OK?

ohmrs2014

I know we all believe that crowd funding is typically a huge NO NO.  But are there ever exceptions to this etiquette rule breaker?

A family really close to my husband and I (they are practically family), suffered a huge blow Friday night when 2 of their 3 children were involved in a hit and run.  The 3rd narrowly escaped harm, but mentally and emotionally, she is not well.

The two boys suffered serious injuries and the oldest one needs his leg amputated.  The younger one had head trauma and while they are optimistic, they won't know the severity of it until they wake him up.

Even with insurance, the medical bills are going to astronomical.  While the police are actively pursuing the driver, theres no guarantee that they will be found, so the medical bills are on the family.

Would you side-eye a situation like this?

Here is the news article (click).

Thanks Ladies.

lurkergirl

It makes me so angry that some selfish stupid piece of shit would ruin lives and leave like that.  Like, I don't believe in karma, but I reeeallly hope something awful happens to that person.

So, that said, I would not side eye that at all.  I'm sure you'll get varying opinions on it, and while I generally wish I saw fewer crowd funding projects in my FB feed, I also feel like the situation you described is the perfect kind of situation to use it, kwim?

ETA: No, I wouldn't side eye that.  I re-read my post and realized my frustration with the other driver came through so strongly that it overshadowed my actual answer to your question.  I will definitely keep that family in my prayers!

chibiyui

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

doeydo

Yep, side eye.  I don't have kids, but I have my fur babies.  If either or both of them needed surgery or anything, that is on me to provide for them, I would never even dream of begging other people on the internet for money.  

LadyMillil

They don't do online crowd funding, but in my hometown in a situation like this it is common for friends of the impacted family to organize a fundraiser to help cover medical bills. Even in Canada, not all helath insurance plans will pay 100% of everything and we all know medical bills can get in the tens of thousands of dollars really quickly. In the situation you posted OP, if I knew the family I would donate some money.

southernbelle0915

I would side eye it less than party/vacation/college type crowd funding. But I have to be honest, even as tragic as it is, I would still side eye it. If people want to offer to help with medical bills, they can contact the family directly and send them a check. Crowd funding/Soliciting family and friends for money, especially in a time like this, puts that pressure on people that I really think has the potential to affect relationships. e g. If Aunt Milly doesn't give, does she not care? KWIM?

Without getting into a bigger discussion about personal finance, I'll just say I am anti-crowd funding in general, though.

kat1114

I wouldn't side eye this. Even if you are financially prudent and saved for emergencies, a tragedy like this could wreck you. More importantly, the parents should be able to focus all of their attention on taking care of their children and not how they are going to make ends meet.

JaxInBlue

I'm for it in this case.  For one thing, it brings more attention to what happened.  More attention probably increases the chance of someone seeing, hearing or remembering something helpful.

I think one-time crowd-funding campaigns to help people who have experienced a tragedy are okay.  It's much like the appeals the Red Cross would put my hometown paper when there was a home fire asking to for help replenishing a family's basic clothing necessities and children's school supplies.

ETA: grammar

flyingfoxes

One of my elementary school friends' wife has MS. He did an online fundraiser to help pay some of their medical bills. They seemed to have a pretty good reception towards it. Now - one of the guys I graduated high school with won the X Factor in 2012. Apparently that relationship only lasted for 1 album that didn't sell, and he was dropped from the record label. Some people were commented that he had to give back 4 of the 5 million he "won" but that's not clear - I don't think it was a cash prize, I think it was dependent on making several records. Anyway, he's got a Kickstarter going to get people to give him money to make another album (like $60k). That one I side-eye a little, because if he did get to keep $1 million, couldn't he fork over the $60k to make another album?

jenna8984

I have no problem with that. I believe those times of emergency and tragedy should be a time for family and friends to show their love and support because I know how much I'd appreciate it if I were in that position. 

A guy I went to high school with, we haven't spoken in 10 years. He heard neighbors fighting and he looked out the window and saw the guy beating up his girlfriend right in the front yard. So being a good samaritan he went over and yelled stop and tried to save the girl. The man gave no warning, and SHOT him in the leg. His leg was basically shattered, so not only the insane medical bills but also the missing work while he was hospitalized for 2 months. I absolutely donated to the page his sister set up. 

lyndausvi

I'm a case-by-case person.  While I would never start a crowd funding if I was the parents in that situation, I do not side-eye those who do.   

Jells2dot0

I also think it depends on the situation of the person who it's helping. I had quite a few medical bills from my cancer treatments this year. If I, or a family member, had started a Go Fund Me to pay my bills, I'm sure I would have gotten a side eye from people. I make six figures at a job that has good insurance, take 5 figure vacations on a regular basis, and have no kids. There should be no reason why I can't afford my bills with my insurance coverage. I did not ask for money, of course. I will say that had I not had insurance, I'd be SOL. My bills are adding up to be close to $1M. 

 

smalfrie19

I would not side eye if it were set up by someone other than the parents.

On a similar note, I have a "friend" on FB who is a single mom with a kid. She was basically begging all week for people to buy her craft stuff off FB to make ends meet because she has surgery coming up and is missing work and wont get paid and he acct is overdrawn and has no money for gas or groceries yadda yadda yadda. 

It was just SO uncomfortable. 

holyguacamole79

chibiyui said:

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

Agree 100%. And, @doeydo‌, I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not a family has children. If the victims had been adults, it could have been handled the same way.

STARMOON44

doeydo said:

Yep, side eye.  I don't have kids, but I have my fur babies.  If either or both of them needed surgery or anything, that is on me to provide for them, I would never even dream of begging other people on the internet for money.  

I side eye ever. Ever. Ever. Comparing pets to people's children. Don't care what the situation is.

And in these circumstances I think it's really not my place to be side eyeing whatever this family chooses. The idea that any of us have any clue how we would react to an unimaginable tragedy is laughable. I might or might not donate, but no way am I judging people who have suffered such a tragedy.

doeydo

Sorrynotsorry, people choose to have children (or pets) and they should be prepared for if a tragedy strikes and they need to provide for something such as multiple surgeries.  If they are not prepared for that, that is on them to get an extra job, take out loans, etc.  They should not ever ask anyone for money.  However, if someone of their own free will hands them a check or envelope of money, good for them and the parents can totally accept that, IMO.

holyguacamole79 said:

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

Agree 100%. And, @doeydo‌, I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not a family has children. If the victims had been adults, it could have been handled the same way.

Um, OK, well lets say it was just the parents that need health care.  Sorry, but you should be prepared for shit to strike, so they could have chosen to live in a country with a better health care system, had a savings account, etc.

holyguacamole79

doeydo said:

Sorrynotsorry, people choose to have children (or pets) and they should be prepared for if a tragedy strikes and they need to provide for something such as multiple surgeries.  If they are not prepared for that, that is on them to get an extra job, take out loans, etc.  They should not ever ask anyone for money.  However, if someone of their own free will hands them a check or envelope of money, good for them and the parents can totally accept that, IMO.

holyguacamole79 said:

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

Agree 100%. And, @doeydo‌, I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not a family has children. If the victims had been adults, it could have been handled the same way.

Um, OK, well lets say it was just the parents that need health care.  Sorry, but you should be prepared for shit to strike, so they could have chosen to live in a country with a better health care system, had a savings account, etc.

The same could be said about the parents of these children (since they are the ones having to pay the medical bills anyway). As someone who doesn't have kids and who has 2 dogs, I don't feel like I'm any less "entitled" than my friends who have kids.

Jells2dot0

doeydo said:

Sorrynotsorry, people choose to have children (or pets) and they should be prepared for if a tragedy strikes and they need to provide for something such as multiple surgeries.  If they are not prepared for that, that is on them to get an extra job, take out loans, etc.  They should not ever ask anyone for money.  However, if someone of their own free will hands them a check or envelope of money, good for them and the parents can totally accept that, IMO.

holyguacamole79 said:

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

Agree 100%. And, @doeydo‌, I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not a family has children. If the victims had been adults, it could have been handled the same way.

Um, OK, well lets say it was just the parents that need health care.  Sorry, but you should be prepared for shit to strike, so they could have chosen to live in a country with a better health care system, had a savings account, etc.

It is NOT easy to immigrate to another country legally, especially one that has the same or better standard of living. You can't just choose to move to Canada, the UK, or Australia when you feel like it. Maybe these countries are more receptive to Canadians, but we have looked into moving overseas and you have to meet very specific criteria. 

edit- spelling

anjemon

I wouldn't side eye. I have donated to a couple of Caring Bridge sites in the past. Medical bills are hard and when something like this comes out of the blue it really sucks.

That said, I may side eye some stuff depending on how hard people are pushing me to donate. If they turn out to be the spammy sort of people I would probably get turned off. 

STARMOON44

I can't imagine the callousness that goes into writing out a response that says if a family is not financially prepared at all times for having 2 of their children nearly killed, they probably should have lived somewhere else.

If you don't want to donate that's 100% okay in my book, but this family's decision to crowdfund or not is not the thing I find most side eye worthy in this thread.

WinstonsGirl

I'm ok with this type of CFing.  It's no different to me that in past years when the news would report on the story and say a trust had been set up at a local bank, and people could donate at any branch if they wanted.  That was just CFing old school style.  Don't ask me to pay for your vacation though.  And don't ask me to pay if you have the means.  I'm ok with it in cases of parent die, here's a fund to help kid grow up and go to Uni or similar, or pay for their necessities cos they no longer have parents and the system is a mess. etc.  

steph861

No, I would not side-eye this. There's a massive difference between honeyfunds and collecting donations for a family in need.

@doeydo‌ You know it's not as simple as moving to another country or saving more. That's an incredibly simplistic view. (Do you know how complicated it is to emigrate? Or how much money a couple would have to make in order to save enough to cover catastrophic hospital bills in the US?).

You're entitled to your opinions, and opposition to crowdfunding is a legitimate opinion, but don't put this on the family for "not being prepared." There are so many variables here. If being 100% prepared for every disaster that could befall children were a prerequisite for having kids, nobody would ever have kids. I doubt you'd be singing this tune if your loved ones were the people in this situation.

doeydo

Was there not a post a while ago on here asking if crowd funding in a certain situation was OK or not?  I think it involved someone with cancer or some type of disease, and the general consensus was OK if some random person started it up. but not OK if it was the spouse/parent/person themselves kind of thing.

Also, I believe there was also talk on here about whether people should be pet parents or parents in general if they would not be able to afford if something came up.  Kind of like the life is like a box of chocolates kind of thing, sometimes you get a mouthful of cappuccino or some shit.

southernbelle0915

doeydo said:

Sorrynotsorry, people choose to have children (or pets) and they should be prepared for if a tragedy strikes and they need to provide for something such as multiple surgeries.  If they are not prepared for that, that is on them to get an extra job, take out loans, etc.  They should not ever ask anyone for money.  However, if someone of their own free will hands them a check or envelope of money, good for them and the parents can totally accept that, IMO.

holyguacamole79 said:

chibiyui said:

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

Agree 100%. And, @doeydo‌, I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not a family has children. If the victims had been adults, it could have been handled the same way.

Um, OK, well lets say it was just the parents that need health care.  Sorry, but you should be prepared for shit to strike, so they could have chosen to live in a country with a better health care system, had a savings account, etc.


*********etf - do not understand the boxes********
I think you and I are the only people who said we'd side-eye it.

However, I don't agree that people can just "(choose) to live in a country with better healthcare." I hope you realize how unrealistic that is. It's not like I can just plop myself down in any country I want and be like, "GIMME HEALTHCARE!" Nope. Does not work like that.

I do think people need to be financially responsible enough to save for emergencies. There are a ton of articles out there that talk about how Americans are notoriously good at spending and bad at saving - just hoping nothing goes wrong. People who feel like they "need" a new smart phone, new car, big house, new furniture, etc etc but then there's nothing in the bank - all their money is spent on "stuff".

Personally (and this has nothing to do with this family's tragedy), DH and I live on one salary. Everything else goes into retirement and savings. Even if we didn't have good jobs, we've still vowed to do things this way. Our thinking is that if we were living on our own, we'd be living off one income anyway and single parents make it work, so we should try too. Sure we could have a lot more stuff, a bigger house, etc. But life is uncertain.

ashley8918

doeydo said:

Sorrynotsorry, people choose to have children (or pets) and they should be prepared for if a tragedy strikes and they need to provide for something such as multiple surgeries.  If they are not prepared for that, that is on them to get an extra job, take out loans, etc.  They should not ever ask anyone for money.  However, if someone of their own free will hands them a check or envelope of money, good for them and the parents can totally accept that, IMO.

holyguacamole79 said:

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

Agree 100%. And, @doeydo‌, I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not a family has children. If the victims had been adults, it could have been handled the same way.

Um, OK, well lets say it was just the parents that need health care.  Sorry, but you should be prepared for shit to strike, so they could have chosen to live in a country with a better health care system, had a savings account, etc.

I hate to break it to you sister, but most people are not prepared (financially or otherwise) for a major tragedy. If I break my leg, my furnace takes a shit, or my car gets totalled? Yep, I'm financially prepared(ish) to deal with those things. Things I am not financially prepared for: Losing my insurance and being diagnosed with, say, cancer, my kids, H,  or myself suffering major trauma that my insurance does not adequately cover, etc. I guess I am horrible and should have chosen to have children on account of not being a millionaire? WHAT. THE. FUCK?

doeydo

steph861 said:

No, I would not side-eye this. There's a massive difference between honeyfunds and collecting donations for a family in need. @doeydo‌ You know it's not as simple as moving to another country or saving more. That's an incredibly simplistic view. (Do you know how complicated it is to emigrate? Or how much money a couple would have to make in order to save enough to cover catastrophic hospital bills in the US?). You're entitled to your opinions, and opposition to crowdfunding is a legitimate opinion, but don't put this on the family for "not being prepared." There are so many variables here. If being 100% prepared for every disaster that could befall children were a prerequisite for having kids, nobody would ever have kids. I doubt you'd be singing this tune if your loved ones were the people in this situation.

People in my family have had cancer, heart attacks, broken hips, knee replacements, and that sort of thing all covered and whatever is not covered, they have paid for by themselves.  I realize how lucky I am to live in Canada, and am very grateful.  No, I am not well educated on immigration processes since I never looked into it.  IDK, I just can't imagine living in a country like the USA and just going through life knowing that if I was to get sick or in an accident I would be SOL.  I feel like I'd turn into Spongebob when he was scared of getting hurt and getting the iron butt, until I could figure something out

ETA and you can bet your bottom dollar that I would spend ever cent I have to save my fur babies if need be, get a payment plan with my vet, take out loans, get another job, etc. but I would never, ever ask anyone for money.

chibiyui

doeydo said:

Sorrynotsorry, people choose to have children (or pets) and they should be prepared for if a tragedy strikes and they need to provide for something such as multiple surgeries.  If they are not prepared for that, that is on them to get an extra job, take out loans, etc.  They should not ever ask anyone for money.  However, if someone of their own free will hands them a check or envelope of money, good for them and the parents can totally accept that, IMO.

holyguacamole79 said:

chibiyui said:

I wouldn't side eye that. It's not for a vacation, or becasuse they were neglecting their health, it's a fucking tragedy.

Agree 100%. And, @doeydo‌, I don't think this has anything to do with whether or not a family has children. If the victims had been adults, it could have been handled the same way.

Um, OK, well lets say it was just the parents that need health care.  Sorry, but you should be prepared for shit to strike, so they could have chosen to live in a country with a better health care system, had a savings account, etc.

That's kind of ridiculous. I plan on having kids, and I'm lucky enough to have a husband with great insurance so I'm not worried about future medical expenses, but basically your saying poor people aND people with shitty health care shouldn't have kids because they might have medical complications.

That's classist as fuck. Why don't you tell poor people to avoid getting cancer while you're at it.

daria24

Doey, your privilege is showing. 

I don't side-eye, exactly, something like this. I just wish people didn't use Crowdrise/GFM for this stuff, because they take a pretty hefty fee. In cases like this, I would just find out how I could send a check directly to the family. I would want to help out, but I want my full $$ going to pay the medical bills, not minus the 5-10% fee. I wish hospitals would set up a way for people to pay directly towards those bills. That would be my most preferred option. 

ETA: Recently, a friend was murdered by an ex-boyfriend. She was a single mom with two children under 10. A friend set up a fund for the kids at the local bank. I was happy to see them use this option, instead of a GFM type of thing. This way the money is protected, and the kids get the full amount. 

STARMOON44

It's really nice to be 100% certain you'd never ask anyone for medical bills when you live some place where catastrophic medical bills that destroy lives and bankrupt even fiscally conservative well run households aren't a thing.

Tell me more about how you totes have 200k lying around just in case one of your pets gets hit by a car.

ashley8918

chibiyui said:

That's classist as fuck. Why don't you tell poor people to avoid getting cancer while you're at it.

WinstonsGirl

doeydo said:

People in my family have had cancer, heart attacks, broken hips, knee replacements, and that sort of thing all covered and whatever is not covered, they have paid for by themselves.  I realize how lucky I am to live in Canada, and am very grateful.  No, I am not well educated on immigration processes since I never looked into it.  IDK, I just can't imagine living in a country like the USA and just going through life knowing that if I was to get sick or in an accident I would be SOL.  I feel like I'd turn into Spongebob when he was scared of getting hurt and getting the iron butt, until I could figure something out

You would be SOL if you didn't have insurance.  From experience, the US health care system is amazing compared to ours if you have coverage (which is another thread anyway).  You et to shop for your surgeon from several, get treatment immediately, etc.  Yes, much of ours if free, but you're also waiting in lines in the hospital, seeing whoever is available.  Both systems have pros and cons and I'm not sure you can compare them