Indiegogo is a well-known crowdfunding website where you can help support everything from the recording of a new album to innovative, new gadgets no one has ever heard of. But now the crowdfunding platform is about to get a whole lot more personal.
Indiegogo launched its new personal fundraising platform called Indiegogo Life today. Unlike Indiegogo, which focuses on funding a project, Indiegogo Life focuses more on helping people raise money for life's ups and downs, be it a honeymoon, medical emergency or buying a car.
"We saw how many people started using the platform to raise money for themselves, a loved one, or even a stranger they wanted to help," Indiegogo's Chief Development Officer Danae Ringelmann told WIRED. "Indiegogo Life is a response to their needs."
The creation of Indiegogo Life was inspired by "The Pastor Marrion Fund" launched in 2011 to raise money for a priest in the Congo to have a kidney transplant, according to Fortune. The success of a 2012 campaign for a vacation for Karen Klein, a bus monitor from upstate New York whose video of her being bullied by four boys during a ride went viral, also helped fuel the need for a platform like Indiegogo Life. Since 2012, the company has seen "triple-digit growth" in the "personal cause" category.
One of the "Most Active" campaigns on the site right now is a "Fund for the children of Eric Garner" organized by Garner's 22-year-old daughter Emerald Snipes. With 22 days left of the campaign, it has already raised 33 percent more than its goal, earning more than $33,000.
While this may seem like pretty much the same thing that Indiegogo has done all along, it's different in that the platform is not only devoted to charitable causes, but it is also something of a charity in and of itself. Unlike Indiegogo, Indiegogo Life doesn't charge any platform fees, so running a fundraiser is free. As WIRED points out, this may be a way for Indiegogo to differentiate itself from other crowdfunding platforms, especially its main competitor Kickstarter, who doesn't offer a platform like this as of yet.
Indiegogo Life sounds great and all, and I imagine it's going to help a lot of people who would otherwise not have these life-changing funds. However, this could be the cynic in me talking, but I worry about the legitimacy of all of the campaigns going forward. Of course, every once in a while you hear about someone raising money online for medical treatment for a disease they don't really have. Although, a fake or joke campaign is probably a once-in-a-blue-moon type deal, I wonder if there's going to be any sort of vetting process on Indiegogo Life moving forward. Seeing a campaign for "The best sandwich ever created" already up on the site is not a good precedent, even if the creator acknowledges that he's just checking out how the platform works. But I guess that sort of thing just goes with the crowdfunding territory.
