Fundraising online has become a new way for families and loved ones to support individuals with medical conditions. The emotional and financial toll that medical conditions and diseases can have on the patient and their loved ones is huge. Unable to cover the medical cost or to seek new treatments that are well out of their reach, a medical fundraiser online has been the go to solution to help not only financially but to provide emotional support.

Simon’s Battle with a Brain Tumour

Simon Hudson was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain tumour in September 2014. He was rushed to hospital on September 18th 2014 unconscious. After testing, doctors at the hospital diagnosed him as suffering from an aggressive form of brain cancer known as Glioblastoma Multiforme Brain Cancer that grows in tumour form very quickly and demands various different treatments.

Once the tumour was diagnosed, it was immediately cut out in an emergency meeting but Simon has had to stay in the hospital since then and recover from the surgical procedure. He has also had to start and undergo various treatments for the brain cancer. Some of the medications needed for his post-surgery therapy are partially covered by Medicare while others are not. Not to mention that all of the required medications are very highly priced and need a host of funding to be financed for his condition.

How Fundraising Online Gave Changed Simon’s Life

As a support plan, Simon’s niece, Yazmin Favaro initiated an online fundraiser to help her uncle collect the funds needed to pay for his treatment. Since Simon’s recovery has been a daily struggle not only for him but also his wife, Memento, who has had to become his full time care giver, the couple are facing extreme financial burdens to meet the funding requirements for Simon’s treatment to continue. Plus they are also stationed in Brisbane which is very far away from where the majority of their family and relatives live. As a result, Memento has had to do all the caring for her husband by herself.

To support the fundraiser, Yazmin has offered the challenge to shave off her head should the target amount be met. She plans on donating her chopped locks to an organization that makes wigs for cancer patients.
Yazmin has also set up a Facebook page, aptly naming it ‘Yaz’s brain cancer head shave fundraiser’, to keep donors posted with all stages of her uncle’s progress.

The page features regular updates in the form of frequent photos, and posts highlighting his different stages of recovery while his stay at the hospital. She has also not forgotten to keep followers aware of her own progress and how she has already cut off an arm length of her hair to go. She still plans on going ahead with the full head shave if successful in raising over AUD 15,000 in donations. So far she has cut her hair down to a short bob.

Other efforts to raise funds for Simon’s treatment included holding special events such as a Christmas party in collaboration with the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand- South East Queensland Division of which Simon is a prominent member. The party was arranged to be held in November of 2014 to raise money to go to Simon’s fund.

How Crowdfunding can help you Raise Money for Medical Treatment

When looking for financial support in times of a medical emergency, most people turn to their immediate contacts such as family and friends. However, getting together huge amounts to finance an expensive medical treatment may not be possible by support from personal contacts alone. For this reason, many people will turn to crowdfunding as a viable option to collect funds.

There are many ways that may be approached when doing this. Here are a few that can add to the success of a medical fundraiser, which have been used by Simon and his loved ones:

Choose the Right Medical Fundraiser Website

Online funding is a fairly new concept but one that has developed extensively over the past few years. Fundraising campaigns such as for Simon’s cause can be launched through these pages and there are specialty websites that cater to raising funds for medical related causes only. These websites are an easy way to reach out to others to raise money.

When choosing a website for a cause, it is important to know how different sites operate before picking one to work with. There are some sites that do not charge anything for setting up the fundraiser while others may keep a portion of the funds generated.

Simon’s webpage was set up on the website PeoplePledge by his niece Yazmin. While PeoplePledge is a highly successful website for raising funds for medical and health causes, due to some technical difficulties, it was reported that payments were not being accepted properly. Therefore Simon’s cause needed to be taken elsewhere for support.

Bring in Social Media

As added support, Yazmin also set up a Facebook page to support her uncle’s cause. Social media sites are a great source for easy outreach in a fundraising campaign. The power of social media is immense in sharing information and when employed properly can make a campaign go a long way. Facebook pages for instance, allow users to not only share the fundraiser created but also share updates, links, as well as communicate with followers.

Facebook page successes for fundraising purpose also become more meaningful to donors since communication is very easy through them. Every donor can be thanked personally by private message or email making them feel like their contribution was truly appreciated. This gesture may also make backers more inclined to donate again in the future.

Engage the Community

Another fundraising tool employed by Simon’s fundraising supporters was to take the fundraiser offline and engage the community with collecting finances for his very expensive treatment. Being a member of the environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand, gave his supporters a platform to use the Institute to arrange a fundraiser.

There are many such organizations, institutes or businesses that can help fundraisers like Simon’s to help collect donations for a cause. Of course, being linked to an organization always helps, but even where there are no membership benefits involved, community organizations of all sorts can be approached to help with a worthy cause.

As has been seen from Simon’s story, using a number of different fundraising techniques can really set a medical fundraiser apart from others of its kind. Bringing in different ways to collect funds both online and offline can make a fundraiser highly successful even when the target amounts seem insurmountable. Fundraising online and working with the community go hand in hand to make the most effective campaign that can exceed financial goals and expectations.