Early Crowdfunding Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract
Background
As the number of COVID-19 cases increased precipitously in the US, policymakers and health officials marshalled their pandemic responses. As the economic impacts multiplied, anecdotal reports noted the increased use of online crowdfunding to defray these costs. We examined the online crowdfunding response in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.
Methods
On May 16, 2020, we extracted all available data available on US campaigns created between January 1 and May 10, 2020 on GoFundMe and identified the subset of COVID-related campaigns using keywords relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored incidence of COVID-related campaigns by geography, by category, and over time and compared campaign characteristics to non-COVID-related campaigns after March 11 when the pandemic was declared.
Results
We found that there was a substantial increase in overall GoFundMe online crowdfunding campaigns in March, largely attributable to COVID-related campaigns. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic persisted and progressed, the number of campaigns per COVID-19 cases declined more than tenfold across all states. COVID-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
Online crowdfunding appears to be a transient stopgap, predicated on the novelty of an emergency rather than the true sustained need of a community. Rather, crowdfunding activity is likely an early marker for communities in acute distress that could be used by governments and aid organizations to guide disaster relief and policy.
Trial registration
N/A
Related articles
Related articles are currently not available for this article.