Funding accounted for 34.5 percent of total financial assistance requested in campaigns initiated between Jan. 1, 2021, and Feb. 28, 2023
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Nov. 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Cancer-related crowdfunding campaigns raised $506 million between January 2021 and May 2023, but few campaigns reached their fundraising goals, according to a study published in the November issue of the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
Zhiyuan Zheng, Ph.D., from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, and colleagues identified cancer-related GoFundMe crowdfunding campaigns initiated between Jan. 1, 2021, and Feb. 28, 2023, with ≥90 days of follow-up to examine the associations between campaign-level characteristics and amounts of financial assistance requested and received, and whether the fundraising goals were achieved.
A total of 78,338 cancer-related crowdfunding campaigns were identified, with 4.45 million donation records. The researchers found that $506 million was raised nationally ($233.7 million annually), which accounted for 34.5 percent of the total financial assistance requested. After adjustment for population size, the annual amount raised was $109,191 per 100,000 people. Overall, 96.8 percent of campaigns listed fundraising goals and 99.6 percent received donations. During the 90-day follow-up period, only 11.5 percent of campaigns reached their fundraising goals. Campaigns that were more successful in raising more money and achieving their fundraising goals were those with fundraiser stories describing beneficiaries who were younger, male, married, living with dependent children, working or attending school, or diagnosed with metastatic disease.
“Although cancer-related GoFundMe campaigns raised millions of dollars, it is less than 5 percent of estimated patient out-of-pocket costs annually,” Zheng said in a statement. “Utilizing the private market may help some patients, but public health policies are needed to make health care affordable for all patients with cancer.”
One author disclosed ties to Merck.
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