On Saturday afternoon, Janet Myers of Bainbridge Island, WA helped put GiveForward over the $2 million mark in total donations with her contribution to the Haiti Relief Effort, a fundraiser to help send Stephanie and Shannon to Fond Parisien, where they will enlist as relief workers in a field hospital. This is a fantastic cause and we are confident that these two ladies will reach their goal soon thanks to helpful people like Janet.

It’s so cool to now be able to truthfully say that we’ve technically helped people raise millions of dollars, so we want to express our gratitude to not only Janet, but all of the people who have ever donated to fundraisers on GiveForward or encouraged their friends and family to do so. Thank you all so much! We couldn’t have made it this far without you, and if we may say so, we’re excited about our future together.

Those who have the pleasure of knowing Jonny Imerman are aware that he has almost exclusively worn an Imerman Angels shirt for the last three years. This all changed earlier this week, however, when Jonny donned our Giveasaurus shirt.

How did this once-in-a-century event come about? Well, it was the result of a recent burrito-eating contest between the GiveForward interns and the Imerman Angels interns.

The agreement heading into the contest was that a GiveForward victory would put Jonny in a Giveasaurus t-shirt for a day, while an Imerman Angels victory would leave our co-founder Ethan Austin in an Imerman Angels-branded banana suit for a week.

Even though the GiveForward squad ultimately came up short and lost the bet, Jonny and his Director of Operations, Aaron Hadley, were good sports and decided to wear the Givesaurus shirts anyway. We couldn’t believe our eyes when they sent us the picture. Enjoy this moment because you may never see Jonny in this shirt again… unless, of course, we win round two of the contest next year!

It’s hard to believe, but Saturday was the two-year anniversary of the launch of GiveForward.   We couldn’t be more grateful for all the wonderful people who have been a part of our community thus far and just wanted to send out a quick thank you to everyone.

nom nom nom!

During this time, we’ve helped 1300 families raise almost $2 million for things like chemotherapy treatments, organ transplants and out-of-pocket living and travel expense. None of this would have been possible without our amazing community getting involved.  We appreciate the fundraising tips you have shared with us over the years, your positive (and occasionally negative) feedback and most importantly your willingness to spread the word about GiveForward to others who can benefit from our service!
read more…

One of the best ways to spread the word about your online fundraising page is to create a Facebook group where you can quickly share information among friends and ask people to donate.   The bigger your Facebook group, the more potential donors you have.  So here’s a useful tip on how to get lots of people to join your Facebook group.

Step 1. Find a donor ahead of time willing to match up to $500, $1000 or some similar amount.  If you don’t have a single donor willing to contribute this amount, try asking 5 friends to each donate $200 and pool the money for a total of $1000. read more…

Though GiveForward users are clearly hip to the advantages of online fundraising, we’ve seen a great number of them also throw offline fundraising events to help a loved one pay for medical expenses. These users have proven that offline fundraising events can be a great way to supplement online fundraising efforts.

read more…

"GiveForward is a game changer for those battling cancer and facing mounting medical expenses. I definitely recommend GiveForward to anyone wondering what they can do to help out when a friend or loved one is diagnosed." - Ethan Zohn, Cancer Survivor

A while back I had the chance to attend the OMG Cancer Summit for young adults in New York presented by I2Y and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

While there were a ton of really great speakers at the Summit like Adam Ostrow, Brad Ludden, Tamika Felder, Jonny Imerman and Matthew Zachary, for me, the best was keynote speaker and former Survivor winner, Ethan Zohn.  Maybe it’s because Ethan and I both share the same name, a love of soccer and had fathers pass away from colon cancer at an early age.  Or maybe it’s simply because we both happen to rock the jew-fro, but something about his speech really hit home with me. read more…

We’ve noticed lately that, much like those seeking alternative cancer treatments, an increasing number of people with rare diseases are using GiveForward to raise money for their often-higher medical costs.

This actually isn’t too surprising because we recently learned that roughly 25 million Americans are living with rare diseases. Most people have probably never heard of these ailments and thus don’t even think to help because they aren’t aware that their help is needed. We are very excited by the indication that we might be able to help bridge this gap, however.

We currently have people fundraising for: a woman undergoing treatment for angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer; a woman undergoing treatment for hemangiopericytoma, another rare type of cancerous tumor; and a 2-year-old undergoing brain surgery as a result of complications brought on by Sturge-Weber Syndrome.

It’s good to see these folks getting the help they need, and it’s also nice to see an increased awareness – even if just around this office – with regards to these rare diseases.

If you have a rare disease (or you know anyone who does) and you want to help get the word out, email a little bit of information to dshar@giveforward.org.