The GoFundMe Generation

Getting caught in the gears of a pro-dependence anti-system

We just passed Giving Tuesday, the largest day of philanthropy every year. This year saw $4 billion in donations from over 38 million donors. It’s an impressive indicator of how generous people can be and as well as how the modern toolkit of social media, digital transactions, and gamification can amplify that generosity.

For the other 364 days of the year, GoFundMe fuels our philanthropic impulses. It’s the democratization of fundraising, where those in need can reach out directly to those who want to help. GoFundMe is marketed as digital generosity, a platform that makes it easier than ever to give and see the direct impact of giving. It would appear to be a benevolent affirmation of humanity’s compassion.

However, when you look more closely at GoFundMe today, in many ways it’s an indictment of the giant holes in our personal and societal approach to planning for our well-being. It’s a life preserver flung into a sea of financial turmoil, where being unprepared for the unexpected leads to campaigns for overdue rent and car repairs alongside surgeries and funeral costs.

Don’t get me wrong — the generosity of those who give is impressive and vital, and for many people GoFundMe is a literal lifesaver. However, it has also commodified catastrophe and turned financial crises into clickable content. Worse, it’s lulled us into ignoring the sound steps we should be taking to make sure that most of us won’t need to beg for help on the virtual streetcorner of digital philanthropy.

A culture of “help me” economics

GoFundMe’s own numbers tell the story. More than 15 million new campaigns were launched in 2024, with over $20 billion raised worldwide. That’s one donation every second — a digital IV drip of charity trying to keep people alive inside a system that keeps letting them down.

The problem is this is triage, not triumph. Every new GoFundMe is a flashing red light — another household, business, or community running on fumes. “I’ll just start a GoFundMe,” has become a strategy for paying for the inevitable financial curveballs life throws at us. The whole platform has become a mirror of financial fragility dressed up as mutual aid.

What’s more, many people use GoFundMe as a statement against “the system.” The healthcare industry is broken, the government doesn’t care, insurance companies are crooks. I’ll turn to my people.

It may feel like we’re fighting the machine by doing it ourselves, but every time we use crowdfunding to patch systemic holes, we reinforce the machine we claim to hate.

When people crowdfund for insulin or surgery, it’s not only a public acknowledgement that healthcare has failed, but a release valve for pressure. Politicians point to community generosity as proof that “people come together,” while the medical-industrial complex keeps billing you $22,000 for a night in the hospital.

Falling into the insurance gap

The rise of GoFundMe has coincided with the decline of people buying insurance:

● Life insurance: According to LIMRA’s 2024 Life Insurance Fact Sheet, in January 2024, 51% of consumers reported owning life insurance (individual, employer-sponsored, etc.). That figure is down significantly from 63% in 2011.

● Disability insurance: In LIMRA’s 2025 U.S. Workplace Benefits Sales results, total workplace disability insurance new premium was $1.6 billion in Q1 2025, a 15% decline year-over-year.

● Long-term care insurance: A 2023 LIMRA and Nationwide survey found that only 18% of adults said they currently own long-term care insurance, but industry data from LIMRA suggests that only ~3.1% of Americans have truly purchased LTC insurance, most of whom are older.

Instead of planning for the unpredictable, people are reacting to it and turning to crowdfunding. People dismiss insurance premiums like they are optional subscriptions, then turn around and ask for $8,000 for dental work, $40,000 for chemo, or $5,000 to bury a parent.

It’s not just individuals, either. Small business owners are turning to GoFundMe to cover flood damage, supply-chain losses, or theft — all of which could have been insured. But policies cost money, paperwork takes time, and short-term thinking always feels cheaper. Until it isn’t.

And what happens when there’s a gap between what you need from a GoFundMe campaign and what you actually raise? That’s a hole many can’t climb out of, but insurance can protect.

The illusion of fairness meets the algorithm of sympathy

Success on GoFundMe is not driven by who needs the most help. It’s who tells the best story. Recent studies of more than 14,000 GoFundMe campaigns found that success is driven by narrative framing — appeals that emphasize loyalty, fairness, or harm attract more donors, but not necessarily larger donations.

And those small businesses looking to raise money? One study found that 40% of small-business campaigns raise nothing at all.

This is where the mythology of GoFundMe collapses. It’s not a meritocracy — it’s marketing. Performance outranks need. Do you want your financial survival to depend on whether your story fits the algorithm, your photo breaks hearts, and your network shares your link? That’s not a plan for disaster, it’s a recipe for one.

Fundraising because of a lack of foresight

We are growing immune to long-term thinking. All of us waste money on subscriptions we don’t use, things we don’t need, and something we want right now. All the while ignoring life insurance and emergency funds. Then when all else fails, we blame “the system” and hope online strangers will bail us out.

That’s the real crisis: not that bad things happen, but that we’ve re-engineered our culture to expect rescue instead of preparation. Every new crowdfunding campaign isn’t proof of collective kindness — it’s proof that risk literacy is dying.

This isn’t only at the personal level. It’s at the societal level as well. I tell my clients, particularly Boomers, that there aren’t enough medical and housing resources to go around. Our social “safety net” is more a game of musical chairs for the later retirement years or for medical care. It doesn’t matter if you can’t hear the music or object to the reality of the circumstances. There’s still one less chair next time you look.

Another thing I tell my clients: Buying insurance isn’t “feeding the machine” or making insurance companies rich. It’s outsmarting others who don’t see risks clearly. It’s about understanding that you don’t want your well-being to hinge on overburdened systems or whether you made a stranger tear up at your misfortune.

Start by insulating yourself. Build cash reserves. Get coverage: life, health, disability, renter’s, business interruption. Refuse to make your crisis someone else’s schadenfreude entertainment.

The profitability of empathy

Finally, it’s important to remember that GoFundMe needs your tragedies because that’s how it makes money. GoFundMe is a venture-backed for-profit company, not a charitable organization. It makes money from payment processing costs, voluntary tips and a cut of recurring donation fees.

In the process, they have raised billions while presenting themselves as a benevolence platform. Its 2024 “Year in Help” report celebrated global generosity but sidestepped the uncomfortable truth: its very existence depends on failure. Every campaign is a story the system didn’t fix, and GoFundMe gets a cut.

That’s not evil. That’s not wrong. It’s business. But let’s not confuse commerce with compassion. GoFundMe definitely helps out many people, but it also helps itself in the process.

If Your Plan B is GoFundMe, You Never Had a Real Plan A

It’s good that crowdfunding exists. It’s great that so many people give, whether it’s on GivingTuesday or for GoFundMe campaigns that rescue someone from the brink of ruin.

However, the surge in GoFundMe campaigns exposes our fragility as much as it highlights our humanity. It shows that we have shifted from preparing for disaster to reacting to disaster. Instead of GoFundMe being the last resort after all else fails, it has become the first resort because we failed to plan for failure.

So in thinking of your future self, visualize disaster. Visualize tragedy. Visualize ruin. Picture what could befall you or your family. Then think about how you could prevent that. And then plan to prevent it. Get the insurance you need. Save for that rainy day. Fit those things into your budget, even if your policy or your savings deposits start out small. Because building guardrails before the drop is preferred to demonstrating heroic resilience after a fall.

Now, could you please help me out by sharing this post with your networks.