Crowdfunding for Memorials
Losing a loved one is never easy. It’s taxing physically, mentally and emotionally, and shouldn’t include the added stress of financial burden. Sadly, the high costs today that are associated with memorial and funeral services often add just that — leaving family and friends unsure of how to pay for a service that adequately remembers those lost.
It’s also something that no one ever plans ahead, making the unexpected costs even tougher to handle. In order to avoid this kind of stress, many people have turned to the power of crowdfunding to help ease or eliminate the financial burdens that come with the unpleasantness of loss.
Why Crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding in recent years has been a highly utilized tool and extremely instrumental in providing small businesses, individuals and organizations an easy platform to create a call to action for a number of causes — startups, non-profit projects or fundraising initiatives for schools and communities. With so many platforms out there, creating a campaign that is accessible by people all over the world is extremely easy to do and rarely requires you to take yourself away from your daily activities.
With the costs of funerals averaging $7,000 and growing, it only makes sense that these kinds of ”calls to action” should also grow to encompass the funding of funeral and memorial services. The average American family has no savings, so when these types of unfortunate events occur, the financial blow dealt by rising costs can seem like an insurmountable obstacle.
Some families of loved ones might be reluctant to enlist the help of others through the innovative platform that crowdfunding provides, but in reality family and friends are eager to help. Those around you expect you to reach out when a shock like this occurs, and the response is often overwhelmingly positive.
People want to give back to those they care about in a way that has a lasting impact and also have an outlet for their own remembrance. Crowdfunding allows the opportunity to help those dealing with tragedy in a tangible way, rather than simply sending condolences in a card or flowers that will eventually wilt and die.
How Can You Begin Your Own Campaign?
With so many different options — Indiegogo, GoFundMe, YouCaring.com and WonderWe — you’ll need to take care when selecting the type of platform that is right for you.
Most platforms charge small percentage fees for each donations, only charge the participants of the fundraising goal is met or create a personalized campaign identified with a code. Whatever the case it is important to understand how to create a successful campaign in order to have success.
WonderWe, for example, is a free fundraising platform that uses a unique We#code to help individuals easily search for and access a campaign. The code created would reflect the memorial fund that it is representing, so if an individual named John Smith passes away, creating a We#code like We#JohnSmith would allow you to notify friends and family and post to social media platforms to make finding your campaign extremely simple and easy. The easy We#code and customized campaign url wonderwe.com/johnsmith would be easy to find and shared in obituaries. What also makes this particular We#code unique is how it pairs with the service’s mobile app — ultimately reaching a larger audience via smartphones, mobile devices and computers. Unlike GoFundMe, WonderWe does not charge a 5% transaction fee. It is completely free to use WonderWe so if a campaign raises $10,000, family members save $500 by using WonderWe and not having to pay the GoFundMe fee.
This is just one example of the many options out there. Choosing which one is right for your family’s needs is completely at your discretion, but remember that utilizing this helpful and accessible tool can help ease the burden that comes with the unexpected loss of a loved one —helping you remember them the way you always wanted to without being weighed down by the expense for years to come.
