DEVELOPMENT OF A CROWDFUNDING WEB-PLATFORM TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MEDICAL FUNDRAISING FOR A CHARITY FUND

Abstract

Online medical crowdfunding has expanded the reach of charitable giving, bypassing the traditional barriers of geographic distance, institutional affiliation, or lack of personal connections. At the same time, lack of trust has emerged as the critical factor inhibiting success, especially in societies that are less comfortable with non-direct, and impersonal charitable giving. The aim of this project is to develop a new crowdfunding platform paradigm for a charity fund that simultaneously addresses the need for transparency and accountability and the need to create emotions of compassion and generosity. In typical medical crowdfunding, notions of trust at a deeper level, of compassion and of gratitude are often an afterthought, long after the design of the platform has been finalized and when there are limited opportunities for improvement. The innovative aspect of the proposed approach is that the need to tend to the human emotions of the donors is interweaved with the technical aspects of the platform design. To demonstrate the proposed approach, Qaiyrym.kz, an actual online medical crowdfunding platform has been built on behalf of Miloserdie, a specific charity organization in Kazakhstan. Initial results based on extensive testing with published cases of real patients demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed platform in increasing donations for the charity organization. The platform managed to collect money and showed good performance compared to Miloserdie fund, though it might be attributed to the event organization and the audience specifics. Each feature implemented on our platform was analyzed based on the feedback and metrics results, which allowed us to assess their effectiveness and make some practical implications for crowdfunding platform managers and campaign initiators.