we've seen the crowdfunding campaigns started to help people get to Uman for Rosh Hashana.
And if that worked, why not use it to raise money for all sorts of other things?
instead of going knocking on doors collecting for "hachnassas kalla", which often means to help the young couple buy an apartment with furnishings, why not turn to crowdfunding?
And that's just what this family from West Hempstead decided to do!
They want to follow their dream and make aliyah, and of course buy a home in Israel. So they started a gofundme campaign to raise the money to do so!
I guess so as not to look selfish they describe the purpose of the campaign as for not just buying a home but also to be able to open that home to others and to be able to share why they love the country so much.
I find their benefits for donating to be cute. They include invitations to dinner or for Shabbos or for the holidays, among other things. On the other hand, if the purpose of helping them buy the house is so that they can open the house to others, one might think that such invitations would be forthcoming even without donating....
And then we have another gofundme campaign from a young couple in new York. He is working but she cannot, yet, because she is Canadian and does not yet have her green card. In the title of the campaign she only mentions that she is expecting her first baby, yet in the description of the campaign that is not even mentioned.
I wish them both, and everyone else, the best of luck and very successful campaigns, but really this is just another, newer, form of the classic shnorring, just less door to door work. Less pounding the pavement. Hey - if it works, it works. If you think it is tzedaka and a good cause, why not use a new platform to ease the ability to give?
Crowdfunding has gone from a method of raising investment into an idea or a way of helping a community initiative to helping private people make ends meet.
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------
It doesn't work for the same reason kollel-for-all doesn't work. And in my opinion, it is an evil thing that has crept into our society. I say "evil" because it consists of people who make SPECIFIC CHOICES* that encourage them to ask for charity, and every penny of charity that they receive is money that will not be going to truly unfortunate people who are in bad situations through no decision/choice of their own.
ReplyDelete* Choices like having a child before you can afford to raise a child, or choices such as not getting yourself a trade and not working for years, and then being stuck in that situation for decades.