The impact of Covid-19 on publicgenerosity toward cancer-related crowdfunding efforts

ABSTRACT

Background: Many patients with cancer rely on public crowdfunding platforms to generate financial support towardcosts associated with their medical care. It is unclear how financial uncertainties resulting from the Covid-19pandemic may impact patient need and public support toward routine cancer-focused campaigns. Methods: Using custom code for web scraping, we identified all campaigns that were generated on thecrowdfunding platform GoFundMe.com in the “Medical, Illness and Healing” category between 8/17/2019 and5/8/2020. This date represents six months of fundraising prior to the first official shelter-in-place order on 3/17/2020.We then abstracted campaigns that included the word “cancer,” originated in the United States, and had raised atleast one dollar. Of these cancer-related campaigns, we collected the dollar amount raised in the first 30 days ofcampaign generation and the total raised to date. Campaigns generated between 2/17/2020 and 3/16/2020 were notincluded in pre/post-Covid calculations because these campaigns would potentially include contributions made after3/17/2020 within their first 30-day values. Results: 19,669 cancer campaigns were identified during the study period (16,823 between 8/17/19 and 2/17/20and 2,846 between 3/17/20 and 5/8/20), raising on average 83% of total funds within the first 30 days of campaigngeneration. In the six months prior to the first shelter-in-place order (8/17/19-2/17/20), there were on average 91new cancer campaigns generated daily. Within the first 30 days, these campaigns averaged $4,472 (median$1,815). After 3/17/20, an average of 54 campaigns were generated daily, representing a 40% decline in dailycampaign generation. Within the first 30 days, these campaigns averaged $6,130 (median $2,950), representing a36% and 60% increase from baseline respectively. Conclusion: Public generosity has increased toward cancer fundraising campaigns since the Covid-19 pandemic, but fewer patients are creating new campaigns. Patients can be reassured that they will likely continue to benefitfrom public support and should not feel limited in asking for help during this period of economic uncertainty. Asphilanthropy sometimes increases during disaster periods, it is unclear if continued support will persist as longer-term economic changes take effect.