A kidney transplant is an expensive but necessary surgery and about 6 lakh people in India are estimated to be waiting to receive one. Each surgery is expected to cost about 2 to 3 lakhs. High costs have made kidney surgeries unaffordable for the common folk yet kidney failure is very common. Crowd funding in India is a way out of this.
Medical fundraising provides much of the business of crowdfunding sites and there are some reasons for this:
- Lack of a strong public healthcare system.
- Extremely expensive private players building for profit hospitals
The above two factors lead to the exclusion of poor people from a profit motivated healthcare system. In order to make up for a faulty system, a lot of people take to crowdfunding for their medical expenses. With the rise of the online economy, crowdfunding too has become a full-fledged market.
The most common illnesses for which people take to medical crowdfunding in India are cancer, liver cirrhosis and kidney transplants. Crowdfunding for heart surgery is also quite common.
If you are waiting for a kidney transplant and want to crowdfund your treatment, there are certain ideas that you must follow. Here are a few of them.
- Have a budget ready. Your budget should include all the expenses of a kidney transplant. This means getting the kidney, cost of the surgery, cost of the medications and of follow ups. In order to know what this will come down to, talk to all the other people who have undergone kidney transplants.
- Once you have your budget, it is time to choose a crowdfunding site. There are plenty of them available on the internet but you have to choose one that suits your needs and purposes the best. Make sure your site can provide you with a campaign manager. This makes it easier on your part to keep track of the campaign. For this service, the site will take a service fee from you. However, remember cheapest is not always the best in crowdfunding.
- You have to write your fundraiser in very lucid terms. Your budgeting will help you with this. Write down your budget in your fundraiser. This will enable you to write your fundraiser and provide a proper target amount. Kidney surgeries are planned from before so you can even set a planned deadline.
- As kidney surgeries are planned from before, you will have some time on your hands to launch a campaign. Make sure you are making full use of all the tools you have for this. Use social media to your advantage. Make posts on Facebook and Twitter. Make a campaign poster that summarizes the issue even more. Make this in the form of a photograph and circulate on Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Instagram. These tend to catch people’s eyes quickly.
- Assemble a team. This may include people who are interested in contributing, family members or a well wisher. Make sure they are committed to your campaign. This is important because your team will see your campaign through. You may be busy in the hospital or with something else. Your team will step in then. Working with a group of people is especially important in medical fundraising.
- Get your team to share your posts and your fundraiser. If you think one fundraiser is not enough, create a number of support fundraisers and ask your team members to share them on different forums. This will enable you to raise as much money as possible while reaching different social circles.
Fundraising for medical treatment is long and tedious work. However, if you have chosen the correct platform and have done your homework well, then it is considerably easier. Despite this, remember that crowdfunding is low risk and zero investment, hence a feasible option for most people.