To wonder if Gofundme is the new thing after a death?

[yankeecandle4]

Serious question.

Due to FB I have seen lots of Gofundme pages set up after the death of a loved one. Mostly (but not always) it has been after the death of a child and is in aid of funeral/headstone or fundraising for the condition that they person died from eg Children's Cancer Fund etc. Completely understandable.

However of late I have seen them with no apparent cause/purpose. This morning there was one "Please keep donations coming in because she doesn't have X in her life anymore" X was not in any way responsible for her upkeep (he was a teen), so I am a bit perplexed at how/why monetary donations are necessary or even desirable.

This is not a thread about grief, but more an etiquette question. Is this now a "thing" to give money to a person when they have lost a loved one, for no apparent reason?

expat's comments maybe making me change my mind about gofundme. They're definitely making me think.

I work a lot with people who are on benefits. So when an acquaintance in his twenties died and someone else set up a GoFundMe for the family readily admitting that they hadn't asked for the money and didn't know about it I was a bit anti it. Because it was ringing alarm bells to me that if his family were also relient on benefits (their son who died was due to disability) the money from this well meaning GoFundMe could potentially screw up their financial situation

I lost a child who was 17 months old.expat has said what I wanted to say.
My work raised money for my little Daisy's funeral, form filling was not on my mind at the time.
When your child dies and in Daisy's case died suddenly the coroner, post mortem etc are enoough to shatter your world
Clearly when you haven't had to bury your baby you look at things differently! ! ! !

MRS .sorry for your loss in the only thing you pay for in scotland is the stone i understand that it is a hard time .but go fund me is used by folk for all sorts of stupid reasons that is what i was getting at .a whip round the neighbours is different that is in your own community but not asking from strangers sorry its not right

ElsaAint ....I'm sorry for the loss of your son and daughter

And for everyone else on here who has lost a loved one also

When my niece died in December suddenly a funding page was set up. As people have said the burial/cremation is often free for children but it's very much a basic service, it doesn't pay for all the costs.

As it was, none of the money raised went to the funeral, it went all to Meningitis Now and over £4000 was raised. A charity night with Heart Fm is also taking place next weekend of behalf of Amelia.

It was nice to see the donations, a lot of people we all knew others had just read Amelia's story in the local paper. Some people would use it to scam others are genuine. No one is making anyone donate to them though, it's easy enough to block them.

'sorry for your loss in the only thing you pay for in scotland is the stone i understand that it is a hard time .'

I'm in Scotland. It was £1100 for the plot, april. It was £495 for associated costs of her funeral, which was nothing fancy at all, it was a Requiem Mass with two cars. IIRC £100 of it was flowers which my sister and parents bought.

You still have to pay for the plot. Land is not free.

Well yes, it's all begging isn't it? But is that a bad thing? Actually 'begging' is not the best word because you aren't usually on your knees pleading for money, but alm these things are asking people for money to support their cause.

Someone sitting on the street with a bowl is asking for money to buy food (or drugs, or whatever).

Gofundme is asking for money to support whatever need that person has at that time.

Churches even ask for money for upkeep.

Its all the same thing, and its actually fine. Everyone is entitled to ASK. It's up to the individual to decide what they want their money to support, be that some coins in a bowl on the street, a donation in a church bowl, a transfer to gofundme for a headstone. And theres absolutely nothing wrong with that. Provided the asker doesnt start harrassing, then I dont see what everyone is getting so upset about - if you dont think it is worthy, dont give them anything. It really is that simple.

I would never set up a GFM page although I do appreciate that there are some seriously worthy ones that I would donate towards.

My DH as recently been diagnosed with lung cancer, and his prognosis is actually really good and all being well, his recent surgery will have cured him. His colleagues did a whip round and came to our house on Christmas Eve with £350 in cash and presented it to him and told him 'life is short so do something nice with your family'. I found it difficult and struggled internally with this, as he will hopefully be okay and we are okay financially and wondered if they thought he was terminally ill and that is why they did it. Turns out they are just nice people who want to help and would be the type to set up a page like that in the genuine belief that it helps.

The money is being used for a week on a Eurocamp and a day in EuroDisney. They were really happy with this.

I didn't know about the free funerals in Scotland. Clearly the undertaker who dealt with my childrens deaths didn't either.

Glad there is so much knowledge from people on here who clearly know fuck all

I've paid for 2 funerals, I can assure anyone who thinks otherwise that you DO pay for childrens funerals in Scotland.

There was a sudden death of a child at DS's school a while back - all the money raised from a school event was then given to the family. The reason for the gift (it was a few hundred pounds, not a vast sum) was not specified, but most of the parents at that school were pretty low-income (including me) and the general feeling was that a few hundred quid to help the family not have another thing to worry about when they were already worrying about so much, was a nice thing to be able to offer.

Just as an info point for people who haven't had to do this - sadly I've had to organise a number of close family funerals in recent years, and with a cremation you don't need a burial plot at all - it's free to scatter the ashes in the local memorial garden (or if you do it yourself), or usually about £100 to ask them to scatter the ashes in another jurisdiction. This also means you don't need a headstone, either. Both of these make the funeral a lot easier to pay for. Since the last two funerals I've managed, they have specified cremation in their wills, so that was a decision taken from me, thankfully - with the last one, I was already in debt from travelling to look after the relative that died, and I was the one paying for the funeral upfront, so I'd have hated to be in the position of having to scrimp on what they wanted, if they'd wanted a plot burial. (I've since specified cremation in my will, for that reason - I don't want my DS spending thousands on a plot or a stone for me.)

Yeah, same here, Elsa. And free burial plots! Who knew? Ours came with a deed. It's a piece of property. We had to buy it.

I haven't seen many GFM requests...I'm sure there is a mix of genuine need and others less so.

Do be careful to check that it's a bona fide account though as a number have been set up after tragedies by people totally unrelated to the death/event.

Well expat clearly our actual experience means nothing at all. Some folk on MN have been told by a neighbours friends uncles cousin that it's true so it must be.

The attitudes towards the death, funerals and grieving of children on MN never fails to astound me these days.

Can't believe it was inferred upthread that people who accept money from anyone towards the funeral of their child are less than genuine.

My parents paid for my daughters funeral so I've no idea how much it cost. I do know that there were no church fees and the grave diggers didn't charge but everything else had to be paid for.

Her gravestone cost £1100 (16.5yrs ago) and again my parents paid that. If it wasn't for them if have been fundraising for her funeral - you don't expect to bury a baby and when you're a SAHM you don't have savings put aside for maternity leave that you can use for the funeral instead.

I remember when I worked in a factory one of my work mates lost his daughter, somebody had a whip round, every single person in that factory (300+ people) put money in for the family to help them.

And I'm sure if GFM existed back then they might have done it that way instead

I don't see the problem with GoFundMe. If you don't want to give, don't.

This!

to all of you who have lost children. You all constantly amaze me with your strength and the time you take to educate people on here.

For those in the know of GFM, how does it work? If I start a page for someone where does the money actually go? Who can access it?