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GoFundMe - please share - advice/ ideas welcome

Started by holyzombiejesus, July 02, 2022, 10:31:59 AM

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holyzombiejesus

As detailed in this thread, I am working with a man (Perez) who desperately needs help. He's seriously ill, isolated and raising two young children on his own. At times he is unable to access the hospital care he desperately needs as he has no-one to look after his children. The effect this is having on him and the kids is terrible. Mum is in Uganda and the family are desperate to be together, but the home office are cunts. He has a charity helping him to apply for a visa for her but this is taking an age, especially as the Home Office keep throwing obstacles in the way and moving the goalposts.

Therefore, I can't think of any other option but to try and raise the money so he can pay for a visa. If he gets the money, mum could be here in 6 weeks. This would fundamentally change the family's lives for the better, it would be incredible.

So, I've started up a GoFundMe. I have to keep it secret from work as I'd get disciplined (or at least severely bollocked) but can't see any other option.

I really need help though. I've set up a twitter account but it's in its infancy and so far has 5 (five) followers. I intend to try and use that to ask people to retweet the GFM and will hopefully make a start on that tomorrow. There are some charities and organsiations involved with Perez and they will share and I have friends, and friends of friends who will also hopefully retweet or share on Facebook.

My plan is, today ask people on here to take a look at the GFM page and see if there's anything that peole think could be written better or any other ideas. Tomorrow, I wil 'launch' it, although that will just be sharing with my facebook friends and starting to tweet/ email people, asking them to share. What I could do with, apart from the initial advice on the actual page, is for people on here to share or ideas who I could contact to give this a wider audience. I'm not actually asking you lot to contribute (although that would be gratefully received) more to help with ideas of who I could ask to put the word out. Hope that makes sense.

So far I have thought of asking sympathetic politicians (basically the SCG), bands, blue tick centrists, charities, churches and sympathetic organisations local to where I live. Any other ideas? Is a new twitter page with 5 followers unlikley to get looked at by people? I'm completely clueless when it comes to this and only really use my twitter account for stage times for bands. If you live somewhere where there are organisations that may share this, could you let me know please (or share with them yourself)? Also, if anyone has any ideas of people or organisations that may offer funding, please let me know. Any ideas woud be really brilliant. Sorry if this is all garbled, I have to go to the fucking local primary school summer fete :(

Oh, here's the GFM page.

https://gofund.me/1f2872e8

Thanks!

Small Man Big Horse

I've taken a look at the GoFundMe page and it seems good to me, not that I have any experience in the field, but it describes the situation well, is clearly emotive but it never feels like you're begging or demanding money, which some that I've seen in the past have suffered from.

This could be completely wrong, but the only thing I'd have concerns about is that lack of twitter followers, and how that might worry people about it not being legitimate, so all I'd suggest is perhaps asking friends / colleagues to follow that account before launching the GoFundMe, it doesn't have to be a huge amount of people, and I've already followed it with two different accounts I have on there in the hope it'll help on that front.

I wish I knew who to suggest on the sharing front, perhaps people like Mark Thomas who are known for supporting causes like this? Otherwise I'd add politicians who are sympathetic to such situations (absolutely no idea who that might be though!) and as you mentioned, charities who specialise in this field...

Dr Rock

It reads very well, it's a very good cause. I've done one before for a small amount of money, and could only get to my Facebook friends. I don't know how to reach a wider audience but agree that trying to get people like Richard Herring and other do-gooders to promote it could be crucial. Is there anything you could add, like a video, that would stop people thinking it might be a scam?

Dr Rock

QuoteThere are some charities and organsiations involved with Perez and they will share


Could you get quotes and links from them to bolster  authenticity?

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on July 02, 2022, 11:15:27 AMI've taken a look at the GoFundMe page and it seems good to me, not that I have any experience in the field, but it describes the situation well, is clearly emotive but it never feels like you're begging or demanding money, which some that I've seen in the past have suffered from.

This could be completely wrong, but the only thing I'd have concerns about is that lack of twitter followers, and how that might worry people about it not being legitimate, so all I'd suggest is perhaps asking friends / colleagues to follow that account before launching the GoFundMe, it doesn't have to be a huge amount of people, and I've already followed it with two different accounts I have on there in the hope it'll help on that front.

I wish I knew who to suggest on the sharing front, perhaps people like Mark Thomas who are known for supporting causes like this? Otherwise I'd add politicians who are sympathetic to such situations (absolutely no idea who that might be though!) and as you mentioned, charities who specialise in this field...

Thanks so much. That's a really good idea and I'll definitely do that when I start Facebook-ing it tomorrow. Might put a sticky on the Twiiter page too although that relies on people seeing it first. I'll have a think but thanks so much for reading this, and the feedback, and donation (if one of them is from you).

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: Dr Rock on July 02, 2022, 02:49:33 PMIt reads very well, it's a very good cause. I've done one before for a small amount of money, and could only get to my Facebook friends. I don't know how to reach a wider audience but agree that trying to get people like Richard Herring and other do-gooders to promote it could be crucial. Is there anything you could add, like a video, that would stop people thinking it might be a scam?

Thansk to you too. I will see about the video. Will also think about getting quotes. I have access to loads of reports but guess I could get in to massive trouble if I used those. AActually, thinking whilst I type, I could ask one of the charities working with Perez if they could provide a quote. Will see what I can do on Monday. Again, thanks for the advice and if you donated, thanks for that too.

holyzombiejesus

We're almost up to £100 and I've only posted it on here, so thanks so much to the 3 4 who have donated.

If anyone is seeing this and has twitter and doesn't mind following, https://twitter.com/PleaseHelpPerez

Again, if people can think of ideas of who could help spread the message, that would be great too. Ta.

Buelligan

Just wanted to bump the thread.  SMBH's point about twitter followers is a great one, I'm afraid I can't help with that but hopefully all the lovely cunts here will.  Have you thought of Ash Sarkar @AyoCaesar ?  A lovely and sympathetic person with a shitload of followers who has helped these kinds of initiatives before IIRC.  Just a thought.

Buelligan

Bump, why not?  Already one twentieth of the way to fixing this and still only on day one(ish). 

Please share it, dear hearts, follow it, even donate if you can.  Do something real in the world to mend some of the terrible shit going on.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on July 02, 2022, 07:40:44 PMThanks so much. That's a really good idea and I'll definitely do that when I start Facebook-ing it tomorrow. Might put a sticky on the Twiiter page too although that relies on people seeing it first. I'll have a think but thanks so much for reading this, and the feedback, and donation (if one of them is from you).

No worries, it wasn't me who had donated as I was out last night, but I have now. And I've shared it on the social media accounts I've got and really hope it helps, if you think of anything else just let me know.

Kankurette

Sophie. pilbeam's a good one to ask about campaigning, raising awareness etc. Bunged you a few quid btw.

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: Kankurette on July 03, 2022, 03:00:31 PMSophie. pilbeam's a good one to ask about campaigning, raising awareness etc. Bunged you a few quid btw.

Ooh, thanks! Do you have a contact email or anything? Thanks for the donation.

Martin Van Buren Stan

Try getting it retweeted by some prominent BLM activists. They do this weekly "drop your fundraisers for an RT" thread which could help. If not just DM it to every activist you see on twitter

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on July 03, 2022, 11:08:41 AMNo worries, it wasn't me who had donated as I was out last night, but I have now. And I've shared it on the social media accounts I've got and really hope it helps, if you think of anything else just let me know.

Quote from: Buelligan on July 02, 2022, 08:27:30 PMJust wanted to bump the thread.  SMBH's point about twitter followers is a great one, I'm afraid I can't help with that but hopefully all the lovely cunts here will.  Have you thought of Ash Sarkar @AyoCaesar ?  A lovely and sympathetic person with a shitload of followers who has helped these kinds of initiatives before IIRC.  Just a thought.

Thanks you two.

Got some more donations today so over £500 now. Felt a bit downhearted after putting on Facebook as hardly anyone outside my family has even acknowledged the post and I was hoping that a few 'friends' might help push it on a bit. Maybe I'm being impatient or maybe no-one looks at Facebook any more. Even people I PMd and asked for a share haven't responded and I can tell they've read the message.

Deffo going to ask Sarkar and the Novara lot, going to email Corbyn's office (& the Peace&Justice office) to see if he could retweet, not sure if I'm living in dreamland though.

My plan is to devote a specific day chasing retweets from one of the following broad groups:
Prominent left wingers (SCG, Novara, Owen Jones. Thought about Mhairi Black too)
Other Labour
General left wing twitter. Been clicking 'follow' a lot today so am following about 400 now although my own followers are mid 20s since I culled the ones who were obvious bots.
Centrists
Might do tories one day for a laugh
Comedy - might put a post in the comedy forum to see if anyone has any suggestions, links or contacts; so far can only think of Josie Long, Richard Herring, Robin Ince and Mark Steele
Musicians
Football - there are a few community minded fans groups who may help, again might post in the football threads for suggestions
Local stuff - local facebook pages, community groups etc although will have to be ready for the 'sorry, we're full' brigade. Again, if anyone knows of a group local to them who might retweet, PLEASE let me know. I feel I need to keep momentum (there's another idea!) going, if only so I don't get downhearted as I think, generally, people don't seem to pay much notice to these kinds of things. People on here are brilliant and I'm really grateful for the encouragement, advice and support (and money).

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: Martin Van Buren Stan on July 03, 2022, 09:16:49 PMTry getting it retweeted by some prominent BLM activists. They do this weekly "drop your fundraisers for an RT" thread which could help. If not just DM it to every activist you see on twitter

Great idea, thanks! Any ideas who to start with, please?

Talking of DMing, is that the bast tack (tact?) to take? I'm not used to contacting people on twitter so was just going to wite their names in the comment, if that makes sense?

Buelligan

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on July 03, 2022, 09:30:12 PMThanks you two.

Got some more donations today so over £500 now. Felt a bit downhearted after putting on Facebook as hardly anyone outside my family has even acknowledged the post and I was hoping that a few 'friends' might help push it on a bit. Maybe I'm being impatient or maybe no-one looks at Facebook any more. Even people I PMd and asked for a share haven't responded and I can tell they've read the message.

Deffo going to ask Sarkar and the Novara lot, going to email Corbyn's office (& the Peace&Justice office) to see if he could retweet, not sure if I'm living in dreamland though.

My plan is to devote a specific day chasing retweets from one of the following broad groups:
Prominent left wingers (SCG, Novara, Owen Jones. Thought about Mhairi Black too)
Other Labour
General left wing twitter. Been clicking 'follow' a lot today so am following about 400 now although my own followers are mid 20s since I culled the ones who were obvious bots.
Centrists
Might do tories one day for a laugh
Comedy - might put a post in the comedy forum to see if anyone has any suggestions, links or contacts; so far can only think of Josie Long, Richard Herring, Robin Ince and Mark Steele
Musicians
Football - there are a few community minded fans groups who may help, again might post in the football threads for suggestions
Local stuff - local facebook pages, community groups etc although will have to be ready for the 'sorry, we're full' brigade. Again, if anyone knows of a group local to them who might retweet, PLEASE let me know. I feel I need to keep momentum (there's another idea!) going, if only so I don't get downhearted as I think, generally, people don't seem to pay much notice to these kinds of things. People on here are brilliant and I'm really grateful for the encouragement, advice and support (and money).

Tons of great ideas there.  Found it really heartening to see the fund achieving so much in so little time.  It's because it's so utterly worthwhile, not often that people have the opportunity to help change something so dramatically for the better.  Lobbed in my Glyndebourne money. 

holyzombiejesus

You're a star Buellers.

After an amazing start, it seems to have ground to a halt now. Nearly all my Facebook friends ignored it. I even DMd some people just asking for a 'share' and they read the messages but just ignored and posted some dimwitted photos of their dinner. It's a bit frustrating and I have to keep myself in check and not leave shitty comments. Been tweeting 'the left' today and sent about 100 tweets, '@'ing the main players, just asking for them to retweet but so far zip. Seems that MPs can't share it if it's not happening in their own constituency (at least that's what Mick Whitley said) and the Novara and union types I tweeted haven't responded at all. Seems a bit ungrateful for me to feel down when some people on here have been so great. I wonder if people automatically switch off when they see gofundme's or if they just think it's a scam. As genuinely great as the people on this thread have been, its odd that only 5 posters have commented when there's such a large left-wing membership of C&B.

Been looking at this list and might send them all an email tomorrow. Still going to try and get football types (Neville Southall especially) and musicians to share, hopefully will have more luck from them.

Small Man Big Horse

I can understand and share your frustration, though it's not running at the moment I posted a message and link on twitter from the comedy blog I used to run asking people to retweet if they're unable to donate, and not one of them did, and I know I'm followed by a fair amount of supposedly left wing comedians.

Buelligan

Those are great ideas HZJ.  I'm so glad that you give enough of a shit to put this thing together and then keep pushing it.  It is hard but I honestly believe it'll get there.

Obviously, the quicker it's done, the better it'll be for the kids and the whole family, so we mustn't despair.  Just think, if you hadn't posted this thread, the £720 raised so far - one seventh of the way there - would not have been raised. 

I would say to anyone with very little (I have very little) give whatever you can.  Great bridges can be built from little stones. 

And if you have nothing, give your time, write to your friends, ask them to write to theirs, someone in that chain may be able to help.

holyzombiejesus

Man, you would not believe the amount of emails I've sent to charities and every single one (except one for a charity shop in Huddersfield that I emailed in error) came back full of sympathy but stating that Perez's case fell outside their remit. He kind of falls through the gaps as he's not seeking asylum and doesn't have particularly pressing needs for clothes or a fridge or whatever. He rang me the day before yesterday saying he'd had a really bad night made worse by his little boy screaming for mum. It's a shit business.

Could really do with shares. Thanks to Kanks, spoke to Sophie Pilbeam and she's retweeted, and it looks like another couple of people have shared the link. Money is still trickling in, alebit very slowly. If anyone reads this and has social media, it would be so great if you could share on there. As ever, any advice on how best to get people to engage would be great. Have probably sent over 200 tweets now and not one of the recipients has RTd, which I find really strange. I wonder if I'm doing it wrong.

Also interested (and not in a judgmental way) in why people may not want to share. Is a GFM deemed a bit naff to have on your social media feed, is there suspicion about them, are people anti-charity, am I a despised cunt? I dunno but it feels strange that I've @'d hundreds of people who would appear to be very sympathetic to plights such as Perez's but they're not willing just to press that RT button, something which would take literally 1 second.

Anyway, here's the link again. Massive thanks to those who have donated, shared and offered advice and support. It really is appreciated.

https://gofund.me/7514d078

Dr Rock


bgmnts

Very cool that it's hit almost a grand already that's mint.

holyzombiejesus

#22
Yeah, it is and i'm really grateful. It's slowed down dramatically though. From day 1 it went from £340 to £640 to £700 to £740 to £810 on day 5, and it's such a large amount that we need. I think I probably got a bit carried away after the first couple of days as I hadn't even tweeted then and thought Facebook friends would all chip in too.

It was great tonight though. For some reason, I got the first retweet on Twitter from someone I @'d in a RT request. Then I got the 2nd, and 3rd and 4th and it carried on until over 20 people (with combined followers of around 130,000) had shared. (I was especially thrilled to see the Burslem School of Art had retweeted and followed. Been walking past that place on my way to matches since i was tiny.) No-one from that lot has donated though but it feels like there's been some progress. Weird how I'd never got any RTs from previous 200 requests but a couple of dozen today.


Buelligan

Lovely to check it this morning and find we've broken (just) £1000.  Only four more to go!

Keep going dear hearts, if you can't donate, please, please, share. 

Life can seem so dark and full of pain sometimes, it's beautiful to know that, if we keep pushing this, we can get the burden moved and we will! 

Share it cunts!

Small Man Big Horse

I keep on meaning to ask, is there a specific deadline for when this needs to happen? I completely get that it's an emergency and as quick as it possibly can is the main answer, but is there a cut off point where the gofundme would stop being of any use?

Buelligan

Don't know about that, but I believe the visa takes (four?) weeks, all the time, Perez and the children are suffering and the possibility of the kids going into foster care increases (I would guess) as he becomes more unwell.  So, from that point of view, it can't happen quick enough. 

Most people would see it as completely natural for parents to be enabled to look after their own children in a situation like this (and for the community to support them to do that).  I think it's really terrible that our society is in a place where families, if they have no money or resources, are just abandoned, destroyed, for want of a few quid. 

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on July 09, 2022, 09:44:16 AMI keep on meaning to ask, is there a specific deadline for when this needs to happen? I completely get that it's an emergency and as quick as it possibly can is the main answer, but is there a cut off point where the gofundme would stop being of any use?

Not really, although ideally we'd get it done before the end of the summer holidays. The charity says that it should take 6 weeks for the visa if we can fund it but we're now looking at over 6 months if we have to try for the fee waiver (and this timeframe is getting extended all the time). I wonder if whoever takes over in government (and if Patel gets replaced) will make a difference, although am working off the presumption that it'll probably be worse rather than better.

I've emailed Perez's local (Labour) MP and asked if he could help. He didn't respond. Probably too busy arranging to chummy up with Farage and speak at anti-net zero rallies.

In case anyone is wondering, I've asked the registered charity that is dealing with the visa to hold all the money raised.

Nearly up to £1100 now and it's almost dead on a week. I've also lowered the total requested down to 3600. We could still do with the full 5k as there are GFM (that always looks like FGM to me) fees, and Gloria needs certain things putting in place as well as a plane ticket, but it looks more attainable now.


Dr Rock

Keep asking anyone high-profile to promote it (Jameela Jamil? Joanna Lumley?) you only need one to send it through the roof.

holyzombiejesus

I did but no celebriies have done so. A couple of twitter users with 50k+ followers have, as did Aidan Moffatt and a published TV reviewer! I got quite demoralised after sending out 500 or so tweets, individually @ing 'famous' users/ vocal people on the left, and getting no responses. Still have musicians and comedians to do, although the former are generally scottish indie folk and the latter often only use twitter for retweeting ticket details for tours. I PM'd Billy Bragg on Facebook and it got read by him or one of his "team" around tea-time yesterday, but nothing in the way of shares or donations yet.

I'd be very grateful for any advice on getting higher profile names to share. DMs seem to be very unwelcome. I managed to get Aidan Moffatt by barging in to a conversation he was having about Start Wars but tried the same with Aaron Bastani and got fuck all. What a stupid fucking sentence. Got a follow from that Laura Kuenssberg Translator account andthey have around 130k followers but they haven't shared as yet.

Also wondering if any businesses do charitable donations. Time and time again, I've contacted a charity only to be told that Perez's case does not fit their remit. It is quite unusual as he's not a refugee, he doesn't need physical goods etc.