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?:abstract
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BACKGROUND As the number of COVID-19 cases increased precipitously in the US, policymakers and health officials marshalled their pandemic responses. As the economic impacts multiplied, anecdotal reports noted the increased use of online crowdfunding to defray these costs. OBJECTIVE We examined the online crowdfunding response in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US to understand incidence of initiation of COVID-related campaigns and compare them to non-COVID-related campaigns. METHODS On May 16, 2020, we extracted all available data available on US campaigns that contained narratives and were created between January 1 and May 10, 2020 on GoFundMe. We identified the subset of COVID-related campaigns using keywords relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored incidence of COVID-related campaigns by geography, by category, and over time and compared campaign characteristics to non-COVID-related campaigns after March 11 when the pandemic was declared. We then used a natural language processing algorithm to cluster campaigns by narrative content using overlapping keywords. RESULTS We found that there was a substantial increase in overall GoFundMe online crowdfunding campaigns in March, largely attributable to COVID-related campaigns. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic persisted and progressed, the number of campaigns per COVID-19 cases declined more than tenfold across all states. The states with the earliest disease burden had the least campaigns per case indicating a lack of a case-dependent response. COVID-related campaigns raised more money, had a longer narrative description, and were more likely to be shared on Facebook than other campaigns in the study period. CONCLUSIONS Online crowdfunding appears to be a stopgap for only a minority of campaigners. The novelty of an emergency likely impacts both campaign initiation and crowdfunding success as it reflects the affective response of a community. Crowdfunding activity likely serves an early signal for emerging needs and societal sentiment for communities in acute distress that could be used by governments and aid organizations to guide disaster relief and policy. CLINICALTRIAL
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