Fundraising for Cancer Costs

What are the 4 words that start with C when a cancer diagnosis hits? Concern, Cure, some Cash to handle expenses, and Connection to be close to people and activities that really matter. Today we focus on a single crucial one: fundraising for cancer costs.

A Loan Against Your Life Insurance Policy: One Way

If you’re reading this blog on our site, you know we provide one key solution to this problem: loans against life insurance policies to give patients the money they need, for whatever purpose they need it for. And we’re more than happy to walk you through the steps.

Crowdfunding: A New Horizon

Another important source is crowdfunding. Everyone has heard of Kickstarter, but its focus is on funding people who create things, not those who need to pay medical bills, however dire the need.

Fortunately, there is GiveForward.com that is specifically focused on helping cancer patients raise money. There are other sites like Rallyhero.com that will let you do this, but as far was we could find, Giveforward is the only one dedicated to fundraising for medical and related expenses. (These include travel expenses and, interestingly, bucket lists associated with terminal illnesses.)

And it works a lot like Kickstarter—there are a raft of tips and ideas for how to create a fundraiser, a list of dos and don’ts and much more.

Of particular interest is the cost—how much GiveForward takes in overhead. Like other crowdfunding sites they have to pay credit card exchange fees and other expenses. Giveforward takes 7.9%, in the range of what these sites charge. But in an intriguing twist, they ask the donors to cover that fee. 95% of donors are willing to do that, which means that over 99% of the original amount donated, on average, goes directly to the fundraising effort.

That’s a neat maneuver: they get paid, but the fundraiser bears only a tiny burden.

And that raises a question: what other tools can you come up with that might finance your bills, or the bills of a loved one? One word that starts with C we haven’t mentioned yet could be part of the answer: Creativity. We’re here with our special focus on life insurance policy loans if you need us. But we’d love to hear your creative ideas to help with fundraising for cancer costs.