Setting Up A Lung Cancer Fundraiser

Cancer is not cheap. We know this before we are diagnosed and get hit hard after. Everything adds up from medical expenses to parking. The added expenses that many do not plan for can be an added stressor to the newly diagnosed.

When I was diagnosed in 2014 I did not plan for a cancer diagnosis and while I was working full time I did not have an insurance plan with Aflac or long/short term disability. I had not started saving for my retirement and I did not have a 401k. My friends and family came together for me in my time of need and donated to my GoFundMe page as well as set up an in-person fundraiser.

Lung cancer online crowdfunding

There are many options out there for crowdfunding with GoFundMe being the most popular. With GoFundMe you would start a GoFundMe, raising funds for medical purposes. This can be set up by you or someone close to you. In my case, my friend set up my fund. Other alternatives to GoFundMe include Fundly, Crowdrise, and You Caring.

In-person fundraisers

For an in-person fundraiser, there are many options that you can do. I had some close friends come together and they made a committee and tasks were delegated. We started by picking a venue, figured out food, entertainment and then decided on raffles and gift baskets.

For the venue, we chose the community center in my hometown. Since it was for a fundraiser the price was discounted. There are many places that you can choose to hold your fundraiser including restaurants/ bars, parks, and even at someone’s home.

The next thing we figured out was food and entertainment. The committee members reached out to their networks and we were lucky enough to get food donated by Texas Roadhouse. We did have other food donated as well. We decided on live entertainment and reached out to a friend and his band to see if they would play. They ended up not playing but that is a different story!

Gathering baskets and raffles was time-consuming but paid off in the end. I had a family member offer to donate a TV and we sold tickets for a set price for that item. We had businesses and individuals donate baskets of varying themes and we had the higher ticketed items donated and did a silent auction. When you are asking businesses for donations make sure to have a flyer with the event information so that they can write the expense off on the business taxes.

A way to support your community

The goal for an in-person fundraiser is to raise money for medical expenses and to keep the cancer survivor afloat during treatment. If you are looking to set up a fundraiser for yourself or for someone else try to get whatever you can donate. The money from the fundraiser for me let me take some time off of work. It also helped me get back and forth to the clinical trial in Boston. I lived off of the money raised for almost 2 years!