Early Crowdfunding Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background As the number of COVID-19 cases increased precipitously in the United States, policy makers and health officials marshalled their pandemic responses. As the economic impacts multiplied, anecdotal reports noted the increased use of web-based crowdfunding to defray these costs. Objective We examined the web-based crowdfunding response in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States to understand the incidence of initiation of COVID-19–related campaigns and compare them to non–COVID-19–related campaigns. Methods On May 16, 2020, we extracted all available data available on US campaigns that contained narratives and were created between January 1 and May 10, 2020, on GoFundMe. We identified the subset of COVID-19–related campaigns using keywords relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored the incidence of COVID-19–related campaigns by geography, by category, and over time, and we compared the characteristics of the campaigns to those of non–COVID-19–related campaigns after March 11, when the pandemic was declared. We then used a natural language processing algorithm to cluster campaigns by narrative content using overlapping keywords. Results We found that there was a substantial increase in overall GoFundMe web-based crowdfunding campaigns in March, largely attributable to COVID-19–related campaigns. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic persisted and progressed, the number of campaigns per COVID-19 case declined more than tenfold across all states. The states with the earliest disease burden had the fewest campaigns per case, indicating a lack of a case-dependent response. COVID-19–related campaigns raised more money, had a longer narrative description, and were more likely to be shared on Facebook than other campaigns in the study period. Conclusions Web-based crowdfunding appears to be a stopgap for only a minority of campaigners. The novelty of an emergency likely impacts both campaign initiation and crowdfunding success, as it reflects the affective response of a community. Crowdfunding activity likely serves as an early signal for emerging needs and societal sentiment for communities in acute distress that could be used by governments and aid organizations to guide disaster relief and policy.

Social media: A new tool for outbreak surveillance

“…Another potential source of disease surveillance derives from crowdfunding sites. 15 As the number of COVID-19 cases and its economic impact increased in the United States, reports noted an increase in web-based crowdfunding related to its costs. Saleh et al 15 examined the web-based crowdfunding response in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States using campaigns with narratives on GoFundMe.…”

Donation crowdfunding as a source of relief for small businesses

“…Some non-reward crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe even introduced tabs and categories dedicated to small businesses affected by the pandemic. This has led to a noticeable spike in the number of fundraisers for small business campaigns on this platform (Saleh, Lehmann & Medford, 2021), which amounted to 15,6% of all Covid-19-related fundraisers in the timeframe of 27 th March to 27 th April (Elmer et al, 2020).…”

Effect of Covid-19 on Fintech

“…During the main year of the COVID-19 emergency, numerous Americans went to altruistic crowdfunding for assist with hospital expenses, burial service costs, lost wages, independent company support, food help, and different requirements. Hence Covid related crowdfunding expanded dramatically after March 2020 on different platforms (Saleh et al, 2021;Cadogan, 2021).…”