GoFundMe’s CEO wants you to ask, “How can I help?” (Published 2022)

Do you think the gaps have always been there or are they more common now?

The situations that are occurring now seem to be more common. But it’s really important to understand that we don’t see ourselves as a substitute for social safety nets. What we are is in addition to whatever you get from the government or the institutions in the society in which you live. What we also do, which is very, very different, is the emotional support that a GoFundMe campaign provides. It’s the fact that your family, your friends, some of the people in your community that you don’t know, some of the strangers that don’t even live in your community, gathered and said, “I’m really sorry this happened. We just want to help you.” We provide a place to convey that.

I recently had some friends go through some really tough things in their lives, and at least people started a GoFundMe. And this exact conversation: How can I help? So that’s how we something that we offer is quite distinctive.

Is there an inherent contradiction in your thinking that GoFundMe is a for-profit company?

Actually, I think the pursuit of profit is what allows us to do what we do and create such a good platform because we have to run a world-class global platform service. We have to keep evolving. We need to keep offering new features. We really need to think about the trust and security side of our business. We need to manage all payments. So making a profit gives us the opportunity to hire great people and compete with other technology companies for those people and compensate them, but we also have the goal of being able to say, I work at a company that is doing something really important. in the world.

What are you doing to minimize instances of fraud and abuse on the platform?

We live in a society of people, and the vast majority of people are good and have no malicious intent. Some people don’t have good intentions, but that goes for anyone who runs a large consumer company or even a small business. You may have someone who can try to get something from your store. So it just tells me we see human nature, nothing more than that.

In terms of how we deal with that, it’s a mix of technology, looking for certain signals and flags. And we’ve been doing this for 11 years now, so we haven’t seen everything under the sun by a long shot. And then there’s a trust and security team that’s very well trained and has a very good playbook for what to look for.