As you browse the internet, you often come across appeals for donations for medical treatments, accompanied by heart-wrenching images. Many will evoke mixed feelings. There will be sympathy for the person in need but also doubts about the genuineness of the request.
That’s modern-day fundraising or rather crowdfunding at work. Here, those in need of money are able to reach out to a wider audience, thanks to online crowdfunding platforms such as Ketto, ImpactGuru, Milaap, among others.
These platforms create a ‘campaign’ – an appeal that tells the story of those needing money, supported by documentary evidence. The campaign is then circulated on social media and across the person’s social network to help raise money. Once the required money is raised, the campaign is closed.
Such platforms have democratised philanthropy by enabling everyone to make a contribution, howsoever small, within a matter of a few clicks. Your donation may also be eligible for deduction under Section 80G of the Income-Tax Act (will be mentioned in the fundraiser, if it is so). At the same time, given the ease of it, doubts have been raised about the genuineness of many of these fundraisers.
We reached out to a few people – those who raised funds and those who donated money on these crowdfunding platforms – to understand their experiences. Were the ones in need able to raise the required money?
Help at hand – a mixed experience
Arunima Lahiri, a public relations consultant, approached Milaap in December 2019 to raise funds for her younger sister, who was diagnosed with brain tuberculosis (TB).
She says Milaap responded to her request very promptly. “They asked us for photographs and documents and created a campaign for us. They asked us to promote it within our social network and said they wouldn’t promote it themselves as that would lead to greater credibility. We were able to raise Rs 45,000 (excluding Rs 5,000 that went towards Milaap’s expenses) from our friends who contributed on the platform,” explains Lahiri.
That was not all. Lahiri says the campaign went viral within their family groups, and “people from the extended family, including my sister’s in-laws and close friends contributed Rs 12 lakh. This wouldn’t have happened without the campaign,” she says. Her sister succumbed to Brain TB in February 2020.
Mira (name changed on request), who raised funds via Ketto for her husband’s surgery, too, had a very positive experience. “The Ketto representative was continuously in touch with us. We were able to raise money within 48 hours. Our friends and family, in India and abroad, were willing to help us. Still, we contacted Ketto because it made it easy for everyone, including those living overseas, to send us money. We also received donations from people we didn’t know.”
Another person, who did not wish to be named, talked about his not-so-great experience of raising money for his aunt’s medical treatment. “We had approached ImpactGuru a few years ago, thinking that they would help us raise money from their network of donors. But that did not happen. They just asked us to share the campaign link with our contacts who made donations to us,” said this person.
According to Piyush Jain, Co-Founder and CEO, ImpactGuru, they amplify the campaigns on various social media platforms. “It is not possible to promote every single campaign, given the large number of fundraisers. However, we strive to profile those that we believe will resonate the most with our donor community.”
ImpactGuru offers three fee models (see graphic). “Globally, every medical crowdfunding platform levies a small fee to sustain its operations. We have to incur various costs relating to technology infrastructure, staff, fundraiser outreach, due diligence and vetting, etc. Only when we sustain, we’ll be able to achieve our mission,” says Jain. At Ketto, you can create a fundraiser by yourself (DIY model) at zero platform fee. For premium services (largely content and marketing-related assistance), the pricing starts at Rs 4,999.
To believe or not to believe
Sitting on the other side are those who might be willing to donate for a worthy cause. Among them are many donors who have given money for charitable causes, often through traditional routes. But with online platforms bringing appeals directly into their living rooms or into the middle of a movie they’re watching on YouTube or a reel on Instagram, many prefer to tread the path cautiously.
Take for example, Lakshmi Iyer, CEO, Investment & Strategy, Kotak Alternate Asset Managers. She has donated to more than a dozen causes on Ketto. “I donate only to those who have come through referrals, not any strangers. I am very clear on this. There is no shortage of scamsters on the lookout for free money,” she says.
F R Singhvi, Joint Managing Director of Sansera Engineering, and an active Rotarian, who has donated to a few causes on Milaap, too, expressed some doubts. “Most of the causes (donation requests) are medical-related. Sometimes, I have found the costs being quoted to be astronomical. As I am connected to a hospital, I can get estimates for such treatment costs.” Recalling one such appeal for the treatment of a spine injury, he says, “The appeal on the platform was asking for Rs 18-24 lakh. But the hospital that I am connected with can do spine-related operations for around Rs 5-6 lakh.”
According to Jain of ImpactGuru, they thoroughly check the hospital cost estimates based on the historical data on their platform and the prevailing TPA (third party administrators that process claims for insurance companies) rates, and the expertise of their in-house panel of doctors.
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For Kapil Sharma, Senior Manager, Marketing and Brand Communications, Waterfield Advisors, his inhibition towards donating on these platforms went away after his friend initiated a medical campaign on Ketto for his father’s treatment. It was likewise for Mira after she successfully raised money for her husband’s surgery.
Sharma makes regular contributions on crowdfunding platforms and says the appeals for donations are accompanied by the patient’s medical documents, hospital bills, and even letters from the hospital attesting to the patient’s inability to foot the medical bill. “All this documentation helps build trust in the legitimacy of the patient.”
Commenting on how they ensure that the money raised is not misused, Jain says, “Typically, more than 80 percent of the funds raised on ImpactGuru are directly transferred to hospitals. “Most of these hospitals are already empanelled by the leading health insurance companies in India. Any reimbursements on the platform are meticulously processed against valid invoices.” According to Ketto, for most of the medical cases that get listed on their platform, the funds raised can only be withdrawn from the hospital’s bank account against the bills shared by the patient, thereby removing any potential risk of fraud.
Testing for genuineness
So, how do these platforms assess whether a fundraiser is genuine or not?
Jain says the ImpactGuru in-house team runs a five-step due diligence process aimed at ensuring the genuineness of the fundraising campaigns. (see graphic).
People we spoke to corroborated this. Mira says she shared her husband’s scanned medical reports, and hospital bills with Ketto, which, then, cross-checked with the concerned hospital. Lahiri too, talked about doing this. In fact, she points out that Milaap contacted her for financial assistance with her sister’s home-care arrangements, too. But with the home-care agency failing to provide an estimate of expenses to support her case, Milaap did not pursue this further.
Risk of ‘spam’ calls, messages and emails
Finally, once you raise funds or make a donation on one of these platforms, be ready to receive phone calls, WhatsApp messages and emails from them. These can be appeals to raise money for other campaigns, or updates on the progress of a particular cause that you had contributed to. The former can be a nuisance for some.
Iyer says, “One big drawback of such platforms is that you keep getting WhatsApp messages and emails. You have the option to stop them but it is annoying.” Sharma, too, is bothered by the bombardment of emails, WhatsApp messages and Twitter and Instagram ads from Ketto. Responding to a question on this matter, Jain said, “A vast majority of donors want to help multiple other people, and they want to get information on other campaigns. Some of them prefer calls, some WhatsApp messages and some emails. And, in all these cases, they have the option to unsubscribe, or to tell us not to call them.”
That aside, how do these platforms fare on cyber security? Is it safe to make payments on them? According to Dr. Rajendra B. Patil, Principal, Bunts Sangha Mumbai’s Anna Leela College of Commerce and Economics, and an AI and Cyber Security Specialist, who technically tested the payments systems of Ketto and ImpactGuru, these platform look secure. “Ketto and ImpactGuru use SSL encryption to protect the transmission of data between the users and their servers. This ensures that any data exchanged remains encrypted and secure from unauthorized access.”
Then, there is one other problem: the pop-ups. Farrokh Jijina, a Mumbai-based chartered accountant, finds donation campaigns on crowdfunding platforms, “too gruesome.” Some appeals carry images of mangled bodies and disfigured faces, which many potential donors like Jijina find horrifying to watch. “Also, when I am watching something on the internet, their advertisements or appeals pop up suddenly. Even if you report them as being repetitive, they keep coming up. Besides, as I said, there is no subtlety in their ads,” says Jijina.
He is on the board of trustees for three separate trusts and is in charge of scrutinising applications of people seeking to raise funds for poverty alleviation and medical needs. In his personal capacity, Jijina prefers to donate to charities that are known to him personally, instead of crowdsourcing platforms.
But then, there are others such as Edil Corneille, a public relations professional, who jokes that since his profession requires him to make many calls to people, he is not that affected by calls and messages from these platforms. “They call me sometimes and also send frequent WhatsApp messages. But I don’t report or block them because I feel this is for a cause and doing this would defeat the purpose.”
And finally, highlighting a positive, Sharma of Waterfield Advisors says that what he loves the most about these platforms is that if you have made a donation, they will send an email updating you about the status of that person. “It tells you that you have made an impact.”
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