How GoFundMe became America's backup plan

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2:07 You know GoFundMe, it's a major fundraising platform where you can donate to help people with everything from medical expenses to little league uniforms to just starting a new business. Tim took over as CEO in March of 2020. fascinating and chaotic moment in the United States and around the world, and the moment, you'll hear me argue, that GoFundMe became a load-bearing part of American culture. Perhaps most importantly, GoFundMe is now a kind of proxy for the broken healthcare system. Medical expenses are the single most popular category of fundraising on the platform. And you might be surprised to hear Tim say it's not just in America, but in every market GoFundMe operates in. All this means GoFundMe sits inside of a ton of big, messy ideas. wealth distribution, geopolitical conflict, and holes in our social safety nets. All of that is in seeming tension with the idea that GoFundMe is a for-profit company, collecting fees and tips and feeling the natural pressure to grow as a business. So you can imagine I had a lot of questions for Tim. Now he thinks about all this. And how he makes some very tough decisions about what money to make and what money not to make.

3:06 To his credit, he was game to go there and talked about it all pretty openly. I hope you enjoy this conversation, and remember, please subscribe to our YouTube channel for new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Okay. Tim Caduggan, CEO of Go Fund Me. Here we go.

3:18 Tim Kduggan, you're the CEO of GoFundMe. Welcome to Decoder. Hey, thank you very much for having me, D Light. I am very excited to talk to you. GoFundMe occupies uh Incredibly unique place. I think in our culture, particularly in American culture and American society, it's a for profit company, which I've a lot of questions about how you think about its place in our culture and the need to grow and

3:53 And then I was doing the research. You joined this company. just in the pandemic, in the heart of the pandemic, when it feels like everything Changed.

4:06 And now we're six years later. Maybe things are settled, maybe they haven't. But I I actually just want to start there. You became the CEO when the idea that the public health system, how we think about healthcare in America all got flipped upside down. I know that healthcare expenses are I think the single biggest category on GoFundMe. How do you think about the platform and how do you think just about that path? From twenty twenty until now. Well well y yes, there's a lot in there. So

4:33 Started on March the second, twenty twenty, which Uh was about A week. before it became very clear. in the US that the pandemic was gonna have major implications, but it was already becoming clear

4:47 uh in other parts of the world. We operate in twenty countries and we did back then. For instance, Italy is an important country for us. And that was probably the first European country that had a big impact. So it was just becoming evident In fact, by the end of the first week we went remote. So Things came. At us. All of us.

5:05 Uh in the world very quickly. They certainly came very quickly for me trying to figure out a new company, a new space, and all the stuff happening. The root of what we do is extremely Simple. We help people help each other.

5:18 And We are there to help people in whatever situation. They need help. Sometimes Those are

5:27 the most consequential, the most significant thing that is happening in someone's life and has ever happened in their life. And sometimes they're very lighthearted and fun and forward looking, like going to college or sending your kids' sports team on tour because they've made the state championships, you name it. Everything in between. If someone thinks they need help. We're here to here to help them mobilize support from friends, family, and networks. And so when you talk about then pandemic,

5:56 That is a time. Where millions of people needed a lot of help. In some cases For medical situations, everything related to that, some cases because they weren't able to work anymore. Or you know, we had a phenomenon where

6:09 That was not expected. We could not have anticipated this. Hundreds thousands of small businesses were shutting down. restaurants, bars, music venues, they were all having to shut for a while, didn't know how long, furlough employee. So we had Tens of thousands of fundraisers that were often being set up by really loyal customers.

6:32 Who said, I love my local restaurant. I really feel bad for the weight stuff and the the the the kitchen stuff. I want to set up a Go Fumby for that. And we had so many of those, and it was such a different use case. that it was a struggle to figure out how do we handle the volume. For example When you raise money into a fundraiser

6:51 to take the money out, you have to go through a KYC process to verify that the right person. If you're a business, you have to go through a KYB process. And that's different and more complicated. And it means you need paperwork. And if people are no longer at their place of business, how do you get the paperwork? So we and our payment processes who we work with, all money goes through our third party payment processes.

7:14 Not through us. So to figure out how do we get through this. Huge amount of new fundraisers. To navigate the situation. So those are a couple of examples of the kind of thing. But it goes back to Helping people help each other.

7:29 in whatever situation they're dealing with. I think the reason I wanted to start there And you can disagree with me on this. That feels To me, like the moment when GoFundMe became a load bearing part.

7:42 of American culture in like very specific ways. The same way that Zoom. maybe became a load bearing part of American business for five minutes. Right. Everything changed and what are the resources and what is the infrastructure and what are the tools And GoFundMe emerged is one of those things. And obviously you were the new CEO at the moment, so

8:03 Maybe you just had to react and One one foot in front of the other. But I'm wondering if you feel the same way about what Go Fund Me has become after that time. I think your phrase there, which I haven't heard before, but I think is a really interesting part of it, load bearing. We definitely were used by more people.

8:20 Um awareness of awareness was already reasonably high, but it has increased to give you a sense our needed awareness was sort of in the Mid thirties, it's now about seventy. Aided awareness is in the low nineties. Uh so almost everyone has heard of GoFundMe.

8:35 And yes, I do think that Uh along with a lot of digital services. In that time period. The awareness and usage elevated and has continued to grow. since then, I think about well, more than a third of American adults have used GoFundMe now. Um

8:52 And also I think it's not just America, though. So we're in twenty other countries UK, Ireland, Italy, France, all the European count, Australia, Canada. Um a similar thing has happened there. Well Doing a GoFundMe?

9:07 Has become Uh expression in the vernacular. And it's be become something that people Definitely relate to us like that is a way. That I can do something.

9:19 I will give you just a personal example. telling your producer before we got on, we were talking about where we are in the country. I'm an Alta Deaner, as I mentioned. In January last year, our town burnt down. Right. Uh six thousand homes.

9:34 about two thirds of the population displaced. GoFundMe was an incredibly important part of the response. The response involved many things, national agencies, local agencies, nonprofit organizations. Go fummy was the way. that over ten thousand families here in the Palisades could mobilize support and love From friends and family.

9:57 Immediately. That's one part of the response. As I mentioned, there are many parts, but the thing That I think maybe people don't realise until you're doing a Go Fund Me.

10:09 Is it is actually about a lot more than the money. The money is obviously important, critical, but what comes with that is the expression of support. So when you're dealing with a tough situation. Many times people feel alone. When you do a fundraiser or someone does one on your behalf.

10:28 Suddenly you start to see here are all these people. Some of whom I know really well, some of friends I might not have seen for a few years, so like hang on a minute, I wanna help. I'm thinking of U. Right. Here's fifty dollars, but more importantly, I'm thinking of you and I will maybe get through that.

10:43 So That The sense of the That a Go Fumby can be the catalyst of that. Yes, you're right, that has become much more significant.

10:53 I'm curious about that dynamic and I I think there's a lot of different ways I wanna come at it through the course of this conversation. But just To make the comparison to Zoom. For example, another service that sort of exploded in use during that time. became a phenomenon. Zoom is business software.

11:10 The idea that a bunch of businesses needed to use Zoom so that everybody could talk to each other, and then that became consumer software. Because we're I don't know, we're gonna run elementary schools over Zoom. The idea that Zoom is a for profit business. that expanded its market and then that change. That feels

11:26 simple in in one specific way. This is enterprise software for businesses that people are going to use in different ways and they're going to charge you money too. The thing you're describing with GoFundMe is far more Cultural. Right, it has echoes deep into how society is structured. How should our communities help one another?

11:43 What is the expression of that help? How should you feel about asking for that help? That echoes differently through time, through situations, through our politics. You've mentioned several times the GoFundMe operates in different countries. Different countries have different

11:59 social safety nets. They have different cultures. They have different uh attitudes towards asking and receiving for help from the government from another. How has that changed?'Cause that feels like maybe the most important part of a for profit service. Where you're

12:15 You're Taking fees from people who are sending money to one another. But you the mission you're describing is more of a social good mission. I mean look, f a couple of things. One, help is part of what makes us human. Like we are social species. We've always lived together in groups. Starting with little villages and all up anything great that we create, we do it together and the so the help is

12:35 timeless, it's inherent, and it to your point, it's universal. So what I've found, I've been to ten or more of our countries, a bunch of them of even just over the last year. Is the patterns what's fascinating every c you go to Australia or Italy or Germany or Canada or UK and everyone else, what's different about us? Uh and also you go Within those countries' di diaspora populations, it can be Nepalese in Australia or the Turkish community in Germany, or you name it.

13:01 And I was like, what's the that's the similarities are actually a lot more Strong. Than the differences. One. Everyone.

13:10 finds it hard to ask for help. I haven't met anyone yet, so that was easy for me to ask for help. And the paradox itself is so powerful, but it's difficult and takes courage to open the door. And I want to come back to that. Um But you're asking me.

13:24 Um. About What does it mean to do this work, but to do it as a business? So a couple of things. One. How does the business work?

13:33 We thought very carefully about this. Our goal is to get as much help to the recipient. as possible.

13:41 So how do we structure the business when you give money? The only fees that we take are the transaction processing fees, which in the US for a consumer fundraiser two point nine cent, thirty cents per transaction. That's the same as where you use it. Credit card or a debit card.

13:56 Anywhere in the world, pump your gas, going to the supermarket. All of those businesses have those feeds. That's it. We have to do that because we have to use third party payment processes to make sure that money flows in the right way is verified and so on. After that.

14:11 We asked the donor. If they want to give us a voluntary contribution. Uh Totally up to that. Make a suggestion.

14:19 People change it. A good chunk of people do give us a tip. A good dug. Chunk dough. I think last year fifteen to twenty million people didn't give us anything, which is fine. Because it's

14:30 The donor is The person in this equation. Who's bringing the financial resources? And we want to leave it up to them. Whether they want to compensate us for the service or not.

14:42 That's it. So We feel that that's very well aligned. Now the reason That we ask for a contribution. Is because

14:51 We Have eight hundred and fifty people here working extremely hard, running servers, building the websites, doing the marketing, doing the trust and safety, you know, running the company, running the organization that enabled eighty million people last year to donate. And has generated over forty billion dollars of help over the last you know, ten, fifteen years. So That takes real work.

15:11 those people need to be compensated and the third party services that we use, whether it be AWS and so on, Open AI? Like They they cost money. Uh and we need that. But We make

15:22 Yeah. And I think it's very unusual. We give people the choice how much they want to pay us. Which I think is really powerful. Is that a a stable amount of revenue? It's a for profit company. I imagine at some point you have to go in front of a board of directors and say the revenue line is going up. Yeah. Is that is voluntary donations a stable line of revenue? Is it growing?

15:44 Yeah, it's highly variable at the individual level. When we but when you talk about the scale that we're talking about, you know, tens of millions of donations. Yeah. aggregates to a fairly steady average. Um And

15:56 Our gross. Comes from Helping more people help each other. Everything we focus on. Is

16:06 How do we generate more help in the world? I mean it's literally my true North objective, start every meeting with that. It's like If we're making a decision The first dimension of making that decision is will this thing that we're thinking about doing

16:21 Help more people help each other. If it does, let's lean into it. If it doesn't Mm. Probably not as important as something that does. Can I just sit in the it aggregates out to a pretty steady percentage across the tens of millions of people.

16:35 That is a huge insight. Right. On the individual level it varies. I'm sure most people listening to this have participated in GoFundMe and decided whether or not to donate And click the box or not. And to everyone listening who has, thank you for the help and if you've contributed to us, thank you for that. Thank you.

16:53 There's a part of that where you're saying If you can get to tens of millions of people. there will be a steady state of donations and there will be an amount of revenue that will track linearly with the growth of the platform Right. And we can come to how the platform might grow in the future, but you're saying that there's something predictable there that lets you grow and generate profit in return.

17:11 What is the mechanism. Mm. The goes from individual decision to donate or not to in the aggregate it's steady.

17:21 'Cause that feels Like a big insight, almost like a bet that the company would have had to make at some point. that it would aggregate over time at scale. That doesn't seem intuitive to me, at least. I mean it's just it's it's

17:34 The average behavior, aggregate average behavior. So Um you can see Yeah. As more and more people use

17:43 Any feature. Your ability to predict how that feature will be used gets more precise. Essentially your path to statistical significance gets improved. This is the same for Anything about what we design. Yeah.

17:59 more and more people use, as you get more people, you run more people in the experiment, you start to see, okay the volatility of usage is going down and we can They'll see that we think it's gonna settle in here, even though there's large variations. So it's really a law of large numbers thing. What is the average donation that people give uh when they participate in the platform? So today uh It's looking you know, it's between

18:23 Eighty to a hundred dollars. Uh and I say that because it's moved in interesting ways over the last year. It varies a lot. Um, based on the category. And it varies a bit by country as well, but

18:38 Somewhere in the eighty to a hundred dollars for Personal fundraising. It varies a little bit more. So another side of our business is called Go Fumbi Pro. So we offer fundraising software to nonprofit organizations. These are folks like World Central Kitchen, Salvation Army, the Mayor Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and so on. And there are two different kinds of donations. There's a one time donation.

19:02 Which is somewhat similar. Sometimes higher. And there's a recurring donation, which is much lower, right? That's someone committing to to give monthly. Uh that's a very important source of revenue to nonprofits, the one that we're spending a lot of time investing in because it gives those nonprofits predictable revenue. And that's more in the sort of twenty five to thirty dollar range. But if you think personal fundraising Eighty to a hundred dollars, roughly.

19:26 Is uh Is while people are contributing. They're contributing to one another or contributing to GoFundMe. That's not what they're told. I'm sorry. personal or or cause that they're helping.

19:38 Sure. I'm curious about that too. Uh that's a fascinating number. I'm asking more specifically when they choose to pay GoFundMe. For the services when you say please pay us, how much are they paying you? This is a few couple of a few dollars. Typically. If they're choosing.

19:53 And a lot of people are choosing not to. That's fine. And for the folks that are Yeah, it'd be a few bucks. The law of large numbers piece of it is really interesting to me.

20:04 I I look at other big services that you know, take percentages of payments over time. I'll just pick on Candy Crush because I love picking on Candy Crush, right? Apple makes a lot of services revenue and probably some huge amount of it is candy crush whales. Right, people who spend Tens of thousands of dollars buying loot boxes and Candy Crush, and Apple just collects the thirty percent. And then there's a long tail of the rest of us.

20:29 who understand that it's a thirty percent fee to do an internet purchase and maybe we do one or two a a month and that's it. And there's some enormous disparity between who generates the bulk of the fees. And the sort of long tail. Do you have that same disparity? Is there a class of people that pays more money? No. No. Um we have uh ours is much more in the center of the belt of. Um because most donations sit in that area.

20:55 And Unsurprisingly, when people are donating more If they choose to contribute to us to tip us, they they they uh Do l much less as a percentage. Uh so people are definitely like

21:07 Looking at that and saying, Hey, what's a reasonable number to give go for me making those choices. I'm guessing there's a lot of software design in there. Uh you can dark pattern yourself into getting more money if you wanted to. You could write more uh heart Unless you pay us some money along the way.

21:28 Uh what's the pull there? I mean that that seems Um If you wanted to optimize a business result, there's a lot of levers to pull. Around the checkbox that says give us some money. We've gone in exactly the opposite direction from anything like that. When I came in, the tipping experience was a step. It was like a little thing of his suggestion. And if you wanted to change it, it was a couple of clicks.

21:48 I don't I I want us to be far more transparent than that. So we tested our way into what we now use as the slider, which is it's right there. It has a suggested amount. And just went boom. Just yeah, obviously people must do it on your phone. You can move it. Without any clicks. In less than two seconds.

22:05 It's right there. But it's cooled out. You know, if you've you know, it's called out there, right in the main experience, it's called out as you're checking out, it's called out in your C Multiple ways. To do it. So it's super clear.

22:18 Uh super transparent. Um But that gives people choice and control. I'm I'm asking about the the revenue side and the the ability to optimize that revenue because these are the pressures every for profit company faces.

22:32 Y the number has to go up. Yeah. And the idea that you can layer in dark patterns You can do what my friend Corey Doctoro calls in shitification and collect more fees along the way. That pull exists when you are a for-profit company. Mm Why be structured that way? And have all of those bad incentives exist as opposed to being a an a nonprofit or a B Corp or any of these other kinds of structures that might reduce

22:59 That pressure. Because uh as a company we can invest a lot more. Um Very simply. Yeah. Uh w we work for some very significant nonprofits, some of the biggest in the world. But

23:13 The biggest doesn't have a technology team more than about fifty or sixty people. Um and to do what we're doing. And to do it at the scale we're doing. Around

23:23 big chunk of the world. Like you need Technology. You need more people. You need the capacity to be able to innovate. Which is what we have done. And so in order to do that

23:34 you need to be able to run as a company. It's really hard to do that as a non profit. So That's the biggest reason. And Yeah.

23:44 Is elegant in the sense that uh objective Is one hundred percent aligned with what our customers are trying trying to achieve. We are Trying to make it easier. For more people to ask for help. And then more people to come in and response to that help. And that takes a lot of thought, a lot of innovation.

24:03 um a lot of software development and we'll talk about the coach and the things that we're doing there. Um And therefore it is us that have done this. Right. Like we invented this thing. We have scaled it. We have helped now many Many tens of millions of people actually hundreds of millions of people help each other and we're continuing to do that. So it is working.

24:26 Um and it's uh and you the way we think about growth is Directly Link. S How do you help?

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28:05 Shopify dot com slash decoder. We're back with GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadugan, discussing the complex nature of online fundraising. Customers are really interesting word there. You you kinda brought me to the decoder questions quite naturally. Well done. But I I wanna just ask about customers. I I understand that on the pro side, the customers are big nonprofits. That probably feels more like a traditional SaaS business in some way. But on the consumer side and the individual side, Who's the customer? Is it the person raising the funds? Is the person paying the money? How do you evaluate that?

28:43 Both. They are both our customer. We sta with the person asking for help. Because they are the source of everything.

28:53 And the paradox of help is that It's really hard to ask for help. And when we helping feels great. So I do a thing when I'm talking at a conference, sometimes I'll ask a little question. I'll say, Hey, who in the room likes helping?

29:09 Yeah. Air one time. Right. Then I say who here likes asking for help? And usually less than ten percent of the room put their hand up.

29:19 And then I say, Who Oh, that's awesome. Who of you likes asking for help in public? And Most of those people put their heads down. We don't like it. And this is not a cultural thing, it's a human thing.

29:33 We don't like asking for help, but the paradox is For help to flow someone has to ask. Because also We've always all been that situation where we think our friend needs some help. Or a relative or a child.

29:47 Heaven forbid. And we Well we'll say you know, I want to help you with this, but they haven't asked. Often doesn't work. It's awkward.

29:57 Right. Can be resisted. But when someone's had someone has asked for help and had the courage to do that. They open this door and then the goodness flows in. And then the experience flows. So we start with

30:10 How do we help people? We know There are so many people who are considering asking for help, but they are inhibited. By many fac emotional factors, societal factors. sense of like can I do this? How would I do this? I've never done before, all my friends think of me, all of the these different things.

30:28 So a lot of our work. And the Yeah so. Smart fundraising coach is gear to help with those problems. So that's the first

30:38 Set of things. And then It's like, okay, how do we give them a great experience? And then how do we give the people who want to come in and help? A great experience. Of helping their friend, their family member.

30:51 or the local nonprofit. And then also give them other experiences on top, like hey. You did a great thing, yeah. And that felt great. Would you like to do more?

31:01 How do we connect you into other experiences where maybe the friend of a friend? Or maybe there's a Another local non non profit or fundraiser in your area that you would like to help with. So Doing more on that. So we think of both. As a customer.

31:14 I'm curious on that and I I wanna push on the sort of redistribution aspect that you're describing. There might be more people to help, right? That's a fascinating concept. Uh you mentioned EgoFundme is eight hundred and fifty people. How is that structured? Yeah. So We uh

31:31 We as I mentioned we we We have one mission. Two approaches. So we are here to help people fundraise successfully and get help. We do that for consumers. And we do that for non profit organisations. The latter is cool.

31:44 Thank you. A company is organized. Largely functionally. So about half the companies in product technology design data science. That's the biggest chunk. then uh the rest of the company is focused on how do we support the people using our platforms. So that's customer care, trust and safety.

32:04 risk and compliance, you're making sure the money is moving in the right way. And then operations. And then of course uh Go to market, which is uh a relatively small sales team reaching out to nonprofits, marketing, and really important part for us is our communications team because a lot of what we do, which is very unusual, is we invest heavily in taking our customers' stories.

32:29 And getting them attention. In the local, national, international media. That's a very important part of the service we provide to them. And it also builds awareness of Go Fumbi because what we're trying to do

32:42 Is show more and more people that you can do this too. Right, that helped works and this is a powerful way to do it in the model Digital world. So that's roughly how it's structured. That communications piece is really interesting to me. It sort of tracks intuitively that if you start a GoFundMe, you want a lot of people to see it. Yes. Right. There there's some

32:59 fractional percentage of all the people who have ever seen your GoFundMe who will donate and if you just increase the total number, you're gonna get a larger number in the end. That communications piece There's an element that is curated by you, right? You're gonna pick the ones that are the most heartwarming that might play in the local media the the best. Then there's a sort of platform aspect to it, right? You can write a GoFundMe that's gonna go the most viral on Facebook somewhere in there.

33:24 Is your AI coach. Yes. Right the the new tool. I I was playing with it today. I can't I I almost just started Gov on me for the fun of it today. I was like right at the end to click on the last button. But it it writes you a GoFundMe. You you say I'm starting w whatever, uh uh uh shelter for puppies, help me write the copy to to to do the GoFundMe and it will just do it for you.

33:44 And there's something about AI in that context. And then having a human comms team in the other context that seem like the same idea point at the same goal. But the AI might because it is sort of the average of every successful GoFundMe might pull everyone in the same direction while your human comms team is trying to show how different everything is.

34:05 Does that track there there's something in there that I I find particularly interesting. Yeah. So um The most important thing. About. Creating and running a Go Fumby.

34:17 is that you can't just put it on the platform and expect people to come to it. Like you as the fundraiser have to tell people about it. So On a

34:27 Coach, we're doing two things. We break it into two main chunks. There is creating the fundraiser, which is what you just went through. And then there is managing it. Yeah. So creating it. There are a lot of big decisions when you create a GoFundMe.

34:41 Right. So first am I gonna do this a lot. Second How exactly do I want it? Write my story. What do I want the title to be? Of that story.

34:50 What do I want the pictures to be, particularly the hero image? What do I want the goal to be? Every one of those decisions Is a point at which People drop.

35:00 'Cause I I've written my story but the title like title you're in You're journalists right. Title writing is hard. It's why a media um organizations have title right departments. So we identified all of these Very

35:14 Difficult blockers. Well like how do we make that easier? The way we started. couple of years ago is helping with those components. So We would say we see that people are getting stuck with titles.

35:26 Let's Take what they've created. And suggest three titles if they like them, pick one, modify one, run with it. It turned out a lot of people use that for We've had over ninety million uses of these different components. Same with goals.

35:39 Where we move to this yeah. Early this year as we launched Smart Fundering Coach, which said actually You can choose. to have an agentic experience, a chat experience of creating your Go F me that's gonna do all of those things with you.

35:56 Holistically. In the create process. But the and the key is It's you. your story that we're helping you put together. Let me give you an example. We

36:07 Wow. We we we do a lot of Um checking people's experience and looking at sample flows. We had a lady whose

36:16 Close friend's son had passed away. And she wanted to create a go for me. For her. But she was so Emotionally affected.

36:27 That Yeah. Uh. Interaction. Was

36:32 struggling to string together. Uh coherent sentences. I just And the coach could interact with her to take a the substance of what she was trying to say.

36:46 In this. very difficult time. And Put it together and explain. what she felt about her friend, what the son, what he'd been about, what they were trying to do, this very particular

36:58 difficult situation and she was able with the assistance of the coach To create that. That's what we're talking about. So For a Gofomi to work, it has to be

37:10 Yeah. It has to be your situation because Most people have you fundraise from all your friends and family. Over 80% of the donors are people who know you, first degree connections. And then yes, they are friends of friends and so on. So people know.

37:25 The GoFundMe is a go cohering point. For that. So the coach is helping People Get through these steps.

37:34 Another example would be picking the goal. Most people haven't ever fundraised before do I Do I pick? A big number, a little number? Do I start low? Does it grow over time? So those are the kinds of choices. And then you get to manage, which is the part that you ask about, communications.

37:50 A lot of that is like how do you share? Who do you share with? When do you share? How often? So for example, we know that the most effective way is to reach out to people one on one. Text them or WhatsApp them. One on one, not groups. 'Cause it's easier to sort of go quiet on the group.

38:07 Much harder. Not to engage. If you Text me like Tim. I was inspired. I set up the GoFundMe that I was talking about.

38:15 And you text me directly. I would like. Okay. Right. Whereas if you check the you check you know a group. It's like, ah, you know, someone else will do that, you know? But

38:26 Yeah. Coaching. And we'll we'll Prompts based on your fundraiser. Like here's a quick little snippet, here's the URLs done for you. You can modify it, then send it to your 10 best friends first.

38:39 Get momentum. And then start reaching out and then start posting on social media. So the model we have now is sort of a daily plan, it's a program. Okay. Stay one is what you do. Find ten people.

38:51 Get it going, get my man day two. You got three donations. Great. Follow it with the other seven. Do this, do this, do this, and we'll do pieces for you. And then our comms Is sort of umbrella on top of that. But the most important thing is to empower and enable the thousands of people starting every day to have a successful fundraiser.

39:13 I'm gonna ask the other decoder question here because I think it's gonna flow into everything else. You have a lot of decisions to make. Those decisions can go in a lot of different directions with a platform like this. How do you make decisions? What's your framework? So I love the fact you use the word framework because There's two really important things that I focus on. The first is Before we make a decision.

39:35 We try and frame the decision. This is so critical. Because what we're trying to do, what any of the tech companies you're talking to, we're trying to create a future that doesn't exist. I think a lot of them are just trying to make money. But uh I'll I'll grant you that. In our case we are trying to We're trying to help people do something that is ancient, but do it in a new way and have more people do it. That doesn't exist right now.

39:59 So That's what I'm trying to do. So When you're trying to innovate and create something new. The questions from the future are murky.

40:11 It isn't like business school, like, hey, there was this challenge, here's the qu like you have to think very carefully to distill what is the question. For example. Let's take one. Um Should we

40:25 Deploy. a more sophisticated recurring giving program on our personal fundraisers. That's a clear question with an answer. So part one is Frame the question because what I find is When we don't frame the question and it's sort of like we're talking about a topic, you get mushy decision making because you have a mushy question or no question at all.

40:48 That's what Two, how do we make decisions? First thing. Will this generate more help in the world? When you say help, does that does that mean money? I just want to be very clear about that. Yes, we we we we I focus on help because help is

41:01 The thing that we're doing And There is so much more around The experience than the money. Yes, we count it by looking at the money. It's an e simple, easy way, but The implications of that.

41:16 The emotional and societal I'll give you an example. I went to Liverpool uh in the UK, because they were the most gender city in the UK. And um about e two years ago there were a bunch of riots in reaction to a murder and there was a sort of lot of riots around immigration and so on, and and a bunch of things in Liverpool were destroyed.

41:39 One was a local library called Spell O Lane. Um and it was ransacked, burned. Severely damaged, unusable. A local woman called Alex McCormick set up. Is a mum. Local mom.

41:50 Set up a fundraiser, I just want to do something, I want to raise five hundred pounds. Well It took off, she made two hundred fifty thousand pounds. The local council got there. Like be rebuilt in less than a year.

42:02 And I went, met the mayor, met Alex, went to see that, met the community. Full of books, full of kids, full of people using the work stations to get jobs'cause it's a dual purpose place. Yeah, you could say that was about the two hundred fifty thousand pounds. But it's not. It's about

42:18 A lot more than that. It's about community saying, No, this is not right. We're gonna do something. It's about the country coming together, you had Matt Hayde the author, you had the Queen uh donating books. I it's just a lot bigger. But yes, we count. Through the GDV. But that's why I focus on help. So

42:36 Will it generate more help? That's number one. And then pulling in the right people to pressure test the logic of okay, how are we gonna go about it. But that is the essence. Frame the key questions.

42:49 Make the decisions and keep the eye on the singular objective. That we Exist. to do. We have no other businesses. We don't do advertising. We don't sell data. We don't do any of those other things.

43:03 We exist to help individuals and organise. I mobilise more support for what they need. What strikes me about your answer there is there's an in Very important values component to what you're describing here. Yes. Right. If the if the target is just money.

43:18 There are a lot of ways for you to make more money. You could do algorithmic discovery in the GoFundMe platform and you would probably generate more money because you would have the most heartwarming pictures of puppy shelters possible right on the front page. But that's not there. But there's very little of that going on. You're saying that the the fundraisers are on their own and you're gonna help them raise money. There there's many, many other things you could do to make money. You're saying the v your values, the company's values inside of decisions prevent you from doing those things.

43:47 I I just wanna push on this a little bit more and then I w I I wanna bring it more practically to some of the areas that you raise a lot of money in. Are the values enough to keep you from the pressures of having to make money? Because that seems like where most businesses are failing, at least in America in twenty twenty six. There are things they said they wouldn't do. I'll just po I'll I'll point it to AI companies. They all said they wouldn't do military and defense work and the money showed up and now they're all doing military and defense work.

44:15 Are the values at GoFundMe so enshrined, so inbuilt Yeah. it they will prevent you from saying actually the dollar should be the target. Because when I talk to our audience about your platform, that's the thing they worry about the most. Well, uh so far it's worked.

44:31 Um B. Only focus on Help. Which we we count that through measure call.

44:37 GDV, which is gross donation volume. Right. That is the amount of money that people are giving to one another to organizations. And that Is Uh.

44:46 The thing like Talk about every meeting. Talk about every company meeting. We tell stories like the ones I've just shared with you about how that is. Now I've been here six and a half years. We haven't Gone into other areas. You know, the thing we have added

45:00 Yeah, is we bought a company that did fundraising for non profits. Because we said, Hey, look. Yeah. Doing well then. helping individuals and we want to continue to grow that, but

45:09 We know that a lot of the consumers that are giving to our individual fundraisers are also helping nonprofits. So that seems like a natural extension. Every opportunity we think about is like how do we do more of this? And one of the things I love about being here.

45:27 Is that singularity of purpose? And clarity. Like. I'm Never fell.

45:35 pulled into a different direction because it's just this is why we are here. Like this is it. This is the whole point of this organization. There's a lot of other organizations doing a lot of other things. But we are, I think, put on this world to do this one thing.

45:53 We need to take on a short break. We'll be right back. Mm. Support for the show comes from Engine. The average business traveler spends 45 minutes booking a single trip on a legacy platform. With Engine, that booking time drops to as little as two and a half minutes. And its AI powered personalization gets faster the more you use it.

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48:09 That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odu for free. at odo.com That's ODOO.com. We're back with Tim Cadegan, CEO of GoFundMe, diving into how the platform intersects with the United States healthcare system.

48:34 Let let's put this into practice. And I I want to start with healthcare, because I think GoFundMe's relationship to the healthcare system in America is fascinating. And as you have said, you operate in many different countries with many different versions of healthcare systems. And when I say many different versions of healthcare systems, what I specifically mean is they almost all have nationalized healthcare. United States is a particular outlier in in not having that. Maybe that's gonna change, maybe it won't, but that is the state of affairs in America today. I think in twenty twenty four, GoFundMe said medical expenses was s the most common fundraising category. Is that still true today? Uh it raises them the largest amount.

49:11 Here's what's interesting. It may may um May surprise you. It's actually the number one category in terms of fundraising dollars in every country we operate in. I mean obviously I'm British originally, I'm familiar with that system. Uh you know, variety of systems a lot of different systems, um, hybrids and so on, but It's actually number one everywhere.

49:34 So Why is that? There's a couple of reasons. One. When a significant medical h issue occurs

49:43 Like we face our mortality. And When we're facing our mortality Or that of a loved one, whether that be a friend or a relative. That's the biggest thing.

49:55 That is the Moment where more than any other moment. People want to su support And Show the love for someone.

50:05 More than anything else. And Well you think about it that way, maybe that's not surprising. The second thing is that There is no medical system on earth that takes care of everything.

50:19 No. Even though there are systems in other countries that uh take care of the medical costs. None of those systems. Takes care. Of

50:28 All of the different things that happen when someone is dealing with a major Health. Issue. Yeah. What a parent.

50:37 Has to go for cancer treatment. They have to travel. Yeah. Can no longer work. they may be looking after their kids or looking after their older parents and they may no longer be able to do that.

50:48 And so there are a lot of other expenses. That come along with a health situation. And those are the moments where folks want to pitch in. And so quite often it will be a friend or relative who does the fundraiser I'm looking to help to make sure these all these other things are taken care of.

51:07 Because the They are hugely consequential. Moments in our lives and I say our lives it is true for all of us. Like we are human, we are mortal. All of us will go through this cycle at one point or another.

51:22 And it's the moment where peace. People most want to help. The third thing is When your aunt or your best friend is going through something in a health related area, there's actually not much

51:34 We can do. But not doctors. Right. We don't we're not cancer researchers. And we feel

51:42 Um A bit helpless. What can I do? How often do you Do you hear that or do you say that where you see that happening say well How can I help?

51:54 This is a way that you can help. You can set up a fundraiser or you can give to a fundraiser, you can mobilize, you can you know Follow up. You can it builds community. Can I can I give you another example? I know I I'm trying to give but I I just want to make it real because

52:11 Sure. It's very, very real. Like recently got to know A young girl called Harla, who's about five. She might just have turned six and her mom Daphne. Hollow Ed. has a very, very rare genetic disease. And her parents

52:27 Fig it out. How to get treatment actually through an amazing foundation based in San Diego called N Lorem Foundation. And that Foundation would Hover.

52:37 The medical treatment. Uh. That medical treatment had to be Down at a hospital and there were a lot of administrative costs related to hospital and those weren't covered about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars. They also lived in a different state.

52:53 So Daphne, who's uh Holly's mom. Set up a fundraiser. And W with a lot of hesitation. Um and

53:05 It actually worked amazingly well. And in four days they raised the funds they needed and a whole community of people, including her Peloton mom's group, who became why like They made it happen. And I got to meet Harlow in June. She came to one of our company events, actually one of our hackathons and She's doing so much better and she's got a little stroll and she was zooming around the stage and I was trying to make sure she wouldn't fall off the edge.

53:30 But But people with For example ultra rare or nano rare diseases like A Go can be a really important part of supplementing what is already happening.

53:43 And it's life changing. Like absolutely. She Harlow's gotten. unique gene therapy and it is helping and it's life changing for her and her family. And So I could tell you

53:55 Many, many stories like that. Um But I think overall it's because we're human, those moments matter more than anything else. No system is perfect, and we can supplement that. And it gives people a way.

54:09 Come together. That is different. From an institution supporting you. An institution can do a lot, the NHS can do a lot, Medicare in Australia can do a lot.

54:20 But it's not coming with love. Right This is very interesting. I I I'm I'm I'm very uh I'm very curious about that aspect of it. It's not coming with love is Fascinating to me. Uh maybe it's because I'm American and I exist in this cultural context.

54:37 And have mostly existed in this cultural context and and you have a much broader context. But I would say broadly Americans do not trust the government. I it feels like a a thing I can say. It's a claim I can make and And you can disagree about how much we should trust the government or not, but I think broadly in twenty twenty six uh trust in our government is very low.

54:57 Even if you could provide a great health care service Medicare for all water form that takes You're saying there's something else the government cannot provide for you. And at the same time, I'm just listening to what you're describing in in these individual stories that are very powerful, and I'm thinking about them in the abstract. And in the abstract All we're doing is

55:19 redistributing money. Right, the the Peloton Mums group has some capital that they can allocate to this problem and they're gonna allocate it to this problem, and that person is gonna feel great and be taken care of. And that is what our government should be doing. Right. That is actually the the function of all of this is to redistribute resources across the society in in some way that makes sense for everyone.

55:42 And some governments do it well, some governments do it poorly. And somewhere in there is GoFundMe. Right, creating a different w redistribution structure and process And It works so well that some people in aggregate give you enough money to have eight hundred and fifty people, most of whom work in product.

56:00 Something about that in relation to health care specifically. Strikes me at least as absurd. And I maybe that's just the American context where we've got it Gotten it so wrong for so long. And I just look at healthcare and I

56:15 I think about how wealthy the healthcare companies are and how people feel about pharmaceutical profits and the fact that they can't get care. And there are studies saying the vast majority of people who have donated to a crowdfunding campaign in America did it because of healthcare expenses. Or there's a University of Washington study that I'm looking at here, uh half a million medical expense campaigns. Found that thirty percent of them Raise zero dollars. And the more medical debt a state has, the less money the campaigns in those states raise. So that it's not actually equalized.

56:46 Right, there's actually a great disparity in the average outcome of the medical campaigns. That is how what like what government spending and tax policy should accomplish, right? Is a more equal policy. I'm just asking how you feel about GoFundMe's role in that. Because as a business that has to make money

57:05 Any change to that structure, at least in United States. Would have an outsized impact on your business. Right, like there there's some relationship to how broken the United States healthcare system is. And your profits. And

57:18 I can't quite bring those together. I I'm wondering how you think about it. I would love for people to have Be taken care of more in whatever way works, right? So

57:31 I think you're making some connections that I agree with, but I think there's a dimension here Which I'll just reiterate, which I think I think you're being very rational. About right, in the sense that I the thing I have learned. And I'm sharing these stories'cause I've met so many people now who've used Go Fund me to

57:49 Help them in their lives. Is how it makes them feel. And how it makes the people that contribute feel. And Oh business.

57:58 And our platform is about emotion when We help each other, we do not Do it. in expectation of return. It's not a product or a service, you're not buying anything.

58:09 Right. You are helping because you care, and in many cases because you love someone else. And I think that is intrinsic and permanent. And I think it will r be valid on top of whatever system we have. Because I think that is

58:26 something that a big system can't provide. Inherently. It's just different. Um so Yes, I I

58:35 Would love. Yeah. Um more people. to have more access and I would also I'm very hopeful My big hope for AI actually is the first thing

58:47 is becable breakthroughs. that more people like Harlow and there are a lot of other people dealing with situations Similar. Have been a pathways. Um to

59:00 earlier identification and and cures. You know, we Have something Yeah. Can help people.

59:09 Come together. Support each other. Realize there are stronger communities. I have seen it. Shifting away from Medico, I've seen it in crisis now in my own town. Right.

59:22 Pretty much everyone I meet. You know, had a good film. Lost their home. And It's not enough to replace your home.

59:30 You need insurance and you need support for that. But it was enough. To You know, get that first month's rents in the place that you had to stay. And it

59:41 God, it made people feel better. You know that well we're not alone. I'm pushing on this because you have brought up the values of the company and your values and your resistance to profit several times now. And so I'm gonna um I would say resistance.

59:57 Right. Yeah. Profit is derivative. T job. as I've been hopefully pretty clear as to how people help each other. And then if we do that well.

1:00:08 they will be more successful and more people will think I can do that too. And that means that we'll be able to Yeah. And hopefully over the the laws of scale that I mentioned in terms of people contributing to us will continue.

1:00:21 But but w the thing you just said, uh you know, we've interviewed many, many politicians on the show. In some way what you've just described is what every politician hopes tax policy will do. We're gonna help more people with more better education and they're gonna make more money and tax revenue will go up. And whether you think taxes should go up or down to do that, that is the goal. And I I'm just wondering if you see the connection. Because it it's fascinating to me. Yeah, I had not

1:00:47 I mean i I do now you mention it. I'd never thought of it quite that way. But I It's just a personal perspective and people very different like For for me, you know Being able to run the company in a disciplined way such that we can make investments and continue, like that's an important

1:01:05 Financial discipline, but the purpose is this big purpose. And it's the same purpose. And it is consistent. And I feel incredibly lucky to be able to work. at an organization where I can be like a Do CEO type stuff and work out really interesting tech things.

1:01:25 But do it for this purpose. I mean I'll just give you just No, I might I we're I'm gonna run out of time, so I'm gonna I apologize. I appreciate all the examples there. Um let me push on that just one more. time on healthcare. And then I want to talk about platform moderation with you, uh just to to wrap this up. And I I appreciate the

1:01:42 You're saying the platform is more emotional and I'm operating in this very abstract aggregate way. Being rational, as as you keep saying. I'm looking at a study here from uh a bunch of economists that found that When there's ACA Medicaid expansion, there's a significantly meaningful effect.

1:02:01 in reducing health related GoFundMe campaigns. So if a state expands Medicaid, the number of GoFundMe campaigns in that state goes down. This suggests like the demand for crowdfunding campaigns is actually driven by gaps in insurance coverage. And so maybe there's the emotional component and all the stuff around you've lost the job, you just need living expenses. But there's also just a statistically meaningful Connection.

1:02:23 to healthcare costs on their face. This again suggests to me that if you're not a little bit more than a There is more Medicaid expansion. you will have some impact on your revenue. Is that a problem? Is that something you think about?

1:02:36 Do you do you lobby against it? How how do you approach that? Uh No, we definitely don't lobby against that. We've had people on the show lobby against things that would would harm their businesses. So I wanted to ask. Yeah. If that's gonna help people, that is great.

1:02:52 We think there are a lot of ways that people want to help each other and we we are constantly Um Focused on Helping people make become aware of all the different things that you can use GoFundMe for.

1:03:07 So No. Uh if that's the case. And people are getting more care and they're well, that's awesome. Again, th the the the thing that I'm pushing on here is you've described, even in your decision making process

1:03:19 a a value based approach. But Another CEO might say, Actually I need to lobby against tax reform. Which is a a real thing that has happened on the show, a real conversation I've had before. And you're saying somewhere embedded in the company, is something that will prevent you from maximizing profit. Not making profit, but maximizing profit.

1:03:39 And it it seems like that is it obviously seems like that's very important to you. Do you get is there pressure to change that? Because that's the one that I look at. No. Right. Where okay, ACA expansion would reduce your the biggest bucket of dollars that comes through the platform. A more craven capitalist would

1:03:58 Take a hard look at that in a different way. No. I mean, I'll give you a different example about during COVID um rent. There were f some some government programs to support people with rent and Um We Uh

1:04:12 Try to But people aware who are using our services, that these serv they could avail themselves of these services. 'Cause a lot of times with with programs that are there, but folks just don't know. that they're eligible for them, may not know how to access them, so

1:04:25 We have tried to tell people like there are other programs. Uh that are available. Um similar to, you know, we will work sometimes with some of our nonprofits who are providing services where a lot of them are medical nonprofits or homelessness focused on food insecurity and so on and so forth. Work with them like there are services that are available to you if you have these needs. Um because we want to make sure that

1:04:50 Yeah, we can. Yeah. direct people to the the those services if they're available. This brings me I I think to to platform moderation. Uh don't find me as a platform. Every platform CEO has to make big moderation decisions. You mentioned you have a a sizable trust and safety team. I if the theme of this conversation is what are the things you won't do, there's actually a long list of things GoFundMe won't let you raise money for.

1:05:14 Tell me about that list, what's on it, what's off it, and how you make those decisions. So we have a set of terms of service, which uh so sounds like you check them out. They're actually readable. Right. So we put a lot of work. Turning into English that anyone can read. pretty practical, right? There's a bunch of things frankly, most of them are legal that, you know, if you do a fundraiser for

1:05:35 you know, you want to spend it on drugs or guns, all these kind like you can't do that. A lot of these also are representation of our payment processes terms as well. Um so those are reflected there. And we think there are common sense set of guardrails, which is Perform is for everybody. Well, anybody without a club here. Fundraise for help themselves, a friend or an organization and

1:05:58 Here's some simple We think they're very pragmatic. God rules. Like hey. Just stay within the guardrails? You're good to go.

1:06:05 That's it. Now Uh those have served us really well. And um I don't really know.

1:06:13 get very involved in decisions around that because they're clear the teams You know, well set up. And off we go. Okay. Clear in the context of contact moderation is simple for the CEO to say. And I I would suspect if you go ask your trust and safety team, it's much more complicated than the great professionals they are. You have a rule against uh funding defenses of people who are alleged to commit violent crimes, like legal defense funds.

1:06:37 Uh we have yes, we we don't allow fundraising for the legal defense of uh violent and financial crimes. So Yeah. Um

1:06:49 Yeah. Uh a bunch of nasty list of things. Yes, we uh made a decision that no We're gonna s you know, not play in that particular area. Um for the

1:07:01 Better of the of the community. And that's a values based decision, right? That's just GoFundMe's decision. It is GoFundMe's decision. Yes. Uh and just to be clear, it doesn't reflect On the innocence or guilt of people in those situations, it's just like, hey, look, that's gets very complicated. It's just better for us.

1:07:19 To the For fundraising purposes on GoFundMe, it doesn't make sense for us. Right next to that, there has been ongoing controversy since 2023. The version has covered it around the freezing of payments and uh an alleged disproportionate rejection of fundraisers for uh humanitarian causes in Gaza and in Palestine. Again, we've covered it, that these things have just gotten frozen, that people are complaining about it. Is that a Values based decision at GoFundMe, is that something else? Not at all. I mean it's uh it's just uh sort of trying to trying to find the right line in terms of the policy. So we

1:07:52 True. Individual fundraising. And fundraising for non profits. We've enabled over half a billion dollars. of support.

1:08:02 To go. It to um the Israel Gaza conflict. Which is a A very large amount of help. Um and so we

1:08:11 Cool. But we are also working, and again I want to stress this, we work together with the payment processes. to make sure that we're adhering to national and international regulations and laws. And In some cases.

1:08:24 Some of those fundraisers. Yeah, didn't didn't meet the criteria to allow them to proceed, and that is a shame. But we have to adhere. It's the right thing to do to adhere to those, but in no way does it reflect a policy of like we don't want to enable people to help. It just has to be illegitimate. So is you'll hear people bringing it up when when things were frozen. You don't hear from all of the stuff that is actually happening. But they're important decisions. They have to be made. We have to do that in a way

1:08:52 That upholds our commitments and keeps the platform safe. And secure. And following laws and regulations, so. That's the case. One of the things that comes up in every conversation I have with a platform CI when it comes to trust and safety is the payment processor.

1:09:07 In some cases the payment. Processors are a much more shadowy figure in the scheme of content moderation. In your case you're you're talking with them quite openly. You're saying, Well, we accept a lot of payments, we move a lot of money, their rules are important. What is that dynamic like? Do you push back on their rules? So they uh so we work with Adding Stripe and PayPal Giving Fund.

1:09:28 Um and actually All funds. Two. Personal fundraisers. Go through our payment processes.

1:09:37 Yeah. We actually never touched the money. And that's important. Uh because it creates another layer of check and bounds. So when you

1:09:45 Uh if you think about a fundraising journey, we do a bunch of steps to validate That the fundraiser is legitimate. We're doing. Uh risk assessment of

1:09:55 uh donations coming in and then when the time comes for someone to verify that they are the beneficiary, and that can often be someone different than the person who's fundraising. They go through the KYC process. I talked about it in the connection of small businesses for in COVID, right? Uh at the first part of the interview. And they have to be verified. And then

1:10:15 The processor. Can unlock funds and begin to disperse those funds. So They are an important part. Of

1:10:22 our infrastructure and the design of the system to ensure that it's as safe and secure as possible. There's a pattern that plays out with every platform that has tighter moderation rules. Another platform shows up with looser moderation rules. Uh you know, Twitch bans a streamer, they go to Kick, YouTube go you go to Rumble with GoFundMe, it's other platforms. Uh there's like a give, send go, and they will allow all the things you don't allow. In the context of Well, this has become infrastructure.

1:10:51 Right. And there's things you won't do. And then you have competitors who will do All kinds of things. Do you think about the dynamic or is it the payment processor set a floor and you're just interpreting based on your values? No. Uh I mean They are all

1:11:07 Turn service. Oh see. looking at what makes sense in the world of money movement. Um, but they are ours and we take full ownership of those and Um

1:11:18 Yeah, well. Head and shoulders. Uh ahead of what anyone else. And we tend to have smaller Uh.

1:11:25 Yeah. Companies that offer a service a bit like ours in every country we operate in. Um, but we focus on What is the right thing? For legitimate customers.

1:11:34 Um, and how do we Craft of coherent Sensible, easy to understand. Um Set of rules.

1:11:44 That rules of the road for everybody, yeah. You go from there? Every platform, including yours, is now caught in the dynamic of wanting to help regular people make better things with AI, with an AI coach that helps you get through the process of starting a fundraiser and marketing it, and then being flooded with enormous amounts of slob. In your case, the enormous amounts of AI slot might be scams. It might be people trying to raise money against fake fundraisers or fake people. How do you balance that? Because that seems like the hardest problem for every kind of platform to solve right now.

1:12:15 Yeah, but I would say we have not seen that as much as maybe some other platforms. Um Because the process of setting up a fundraiser Is

1:12:28 Has to be so authentic. People call it crowdfunding. I don't like that term. Because a crowd implies a large group of strangers. It you know, it's it wouldn't work as well, but it's more like friends and family fundraising.

1:12:42 So Fundraisers that don't resonate With your network, your community, your friends and family, don't work. So uh it it's very hard.

1:12:54 To get a fundraiser to go viral. Unless it has some initial momentum. Um, and then the initial momentum comes so the people who know you, know your situation, want to help and create that. So Maybe it's just

1:13:07 A bit of a different dynamic. Are you on guard against it? Are you seeing it pop up even a little bit? Of yeah, actually on guard against it. But in terms of like massive spikes, which is fundraiser starts. Like we haven't seen Crazy Spikes.

1:13:23 Like that. Um But we're very much on guard against that. We're very much We're certainly using AI and our tooling to help our folks make the right judgments and so on. Um

1:13:34 So we're doing those things. Not to continue to be just ruthlessly rational about your platform. But if I I look at it and if you have more fundraisers that will that will lead to more outcomes. You got in a little bit of trouble recently. Uh on the nonprofit side.

1:13:52 You set up pages for nonprofits that not had not signed up for GoFundMe. A bunch of state attorneys general had accused you of plagiarizing the charity pages and setting up nonprofits. You apologized, you took them down. There is a class action lawsuit. That to me looks like we need to increase the number of inputs. Right. We Yelp ran into the same thing. If you're gonna be the platform for all charitable giving, you need to have all the charities. For Yelp it was you need to have all the businesses. We're just gonna set up the listings and go. What led to that decision?

1:14:21 So that was a yeah. It's a classic of you have your o overarching principle, which is hey we want to mobilise more help in the world. Our full process was we got more than a hundred million people coming to go fund me a month. No, many of them are helping directly something. But

1:14:38 We also know A lot of those people Are interest in supporting Local national charities. So

1:14:47 Why don't we make it a little bit easier for them? to find those organizations'cause we know those organizations What more support us? And are trying to work through an increasingly fragmented digital environment, like we're a place that people are coming to help. Wouldn't it be great to just

1:15:06 Give more people that opportunity. No. Classic tech company thing. We moved a little bit too quickly. We didn't think carefully enough about how to bring people into that and give them control. And we got that reaction and we're like, You know what? You're right. We

1:15:21 Did go too quick. We made a couple of mistakes. We are sorry for that. That's not our intent. Our intent is to get more people supporting your organizations. But let's You know, take a beat. Change our approach, which we have. Um and lean into that because it you know, if it if you don't like it, it's not working.

1:15:38 I I just want to connect that to the AI piece. And I understand there's a lawsuit there and th that's probably all I can get out of you on that one. But let me connect that to the AI piece. Classic 10 company move. We see demand. What you're describing is Go find me as an aggregator, right? You ha you have the demand, the same way that Google has the demand or Instagram has the demand. We have a lot of people coming who want to help. Wanna help and then you can redistribute the demand.

1:16:01 That's an aggregator move. The the response on the other platforms. Has been Oh, we're gonna put more stuff here.

1:16:10 Well, I'm gonna use AI and I'm gonna make five hundred YouTube videos a day to try to capture pieces of that demand. You can see it happening on the web and Google search in a thousand different ways. You can see it happening on Instagram. I know people who have fully automated their Instagram accounts to post hundreds of reels a day using Claude and MCP connectors. Why hasn't that happened to you if you're the aggregator of demand? So if you're talking about Um

1:16:36 non profits Well, I I'm saying what I s what I the connection I'm making more specifically is you saw the demand to give to nonprofits and in a very manual way, you set up a bunch of pages for them. Right. And maybe that was the right thing or the wrong thing to do and that will come to whatever regulatory conclusion it's gonna come to. But that was the response is to See the demand and then do something about it. On every other platform.

1:16:59 AI has stepped into the middle of that cycle and the response is, Oh, we're gonna overfill the demand because the cost of production is so low. Right, I can just say go make five million YouTube clips of this episode and just fire them into the algorithm all day and all night. And let's see what happens. And you can just see it happening all over the place on all of those platforms. Here you have demand.

1:17:22 If I was uh uh an unscrupulous actor, I would say, boy, there's a bunch of demand of people who want to give help, give money on that platform. I will use AI to go get it. Right, in some in whatever way that that occurs. I'm gonna go get literal money, not clicks, but actual money. I'm gonna find a way to get it. What Is keeping that happening right now, you're saying it's not happening, and what might prevent it from happening,'cause that strikes me as a a pretty huge risk.

1:17:49 I think probably the reason that that's maybe not happening is But when you Give, you have to have an emotional connection. And that comes from a Some deg sense of relationship.

1:18:01 Either a relationship with a person who's fundraising or a relationship with a cause or an organization that Resonates with you. And that really can't be manufactured. Right.

1:18:15 People feel it. And it has to be real. But it's fundamentally human and I I just think it's

1:18:23 A lot harder. Maybe two. Try and synthesize that. Versus just having it stay real. And so that's

1:18:33 The way we use Mm-hmm. AI for uh of the folks who are fundraising who are asking for help. Yeah.

1:18:40 Excuse me. It's too Assist them. In telling. Their story. Their way.

1:18:48 To their people. Um And It it just has to be.

1:18:54 Completely real and genuine. For it to work. I'm curious how that goes over time. I'm I'm reliably told that AI can be your girlfriend. So We're gonna find out. We've had

1:19:04 Again, we've had COs on the show tell me that you can marry an AI. That emotional connection is coming in one way or another. Uh we'll see how it goes. Thank you so much for all this time. I'll just leave you with this. The more powerful the technology, like the the uh The more significant the the and unknown the implications. So you you know some of those guys are right.

1:19:26 But That is a big question. I don't think we have nearly enough time to dive into it. Tim, thank you so much. What's next for GoFundMe? What should people be looking for? Um we are Focused very heavily on involving the coach.

1:19:38 Just give you a sense. Very quickly. It's helped people be more successful. We thought it would help raise about a hundred and twenty five million dollars. more this year, it's on track to double that. Quarter of a billion, so that's a lot more help. And

1:19:52 It's making people feel better. Like two thirds of the folks who are using it. feel less stressed, more confident, critically less alone. So from a consumer point of view We are leaning very heavily into that. And We hope over time.

1:20:07 to be able to show more people that we will help them take the brave step. Ask for help and a lot to support the old cover. So that's a big focus for us. Yeah. We'll have to have you back soon to see how all of these things go out. Tim, thank you so much for great conversation. Good really searching questions. Thank you for that. I'd like to thank Tim for taking the time to speak with me and thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. Let us know what you thought about this episode or really anything else at all. Drop us a line. You can email us at decoder at the verge.com. We really do read all the emails. Or you can hit me up directly on Threads or Blue Sky. We're also on YouTube. You can watch full episodes at DekoderPod. We also have a TikTok and an Instagram. They're both at DekoderPod as well. They're a lot of fun.

1:20:45 If you like decoder, please share it with your friends and subscribe over here podcasts. Dicoder's Production on the Verge and part of the Box Meaning Podcast Network. Dakota's producers are Greg Ott, Kate Cox, and Nick Stat. This episode was edited by Eileen Felix. Our editorial director is Kevin McShayne. The Dicoder Music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. We'll see you next time.

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