I was introduced to the idea of crowdfunding. Basically, there are these websites where you post about a project and set a target goal and people send you donations to fund this project. Mostly it seems to be for art related things, but apparently, some trans people fund their surgeries this way.
(A guy apparently got funded to make potato salad. Asking for funding for surgery is fine.)
I was wondering if anyone here has funded their surgeries this way and, if so, how did they find it? What advice would you give?
Might not want to hear this Edge but do it and find a way to do it on our own. Don't count on no one but yourself.
You never know the real intentions why someone would do this. There is simply no free lunches in the world. I would be very leery and not go this route. :-\
I've only met, spoke to, or know of people that have used crowd-funding to various degrees of success so sorry if this input is useless. Unfortunately, it seems the vast majority don't get anything or get very little because they simply lack audience and prominence. In my experience, the people that are successful are those already quite popular on social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr. They knowingly or unknowingly leverage their reach to get funding so if you have that reach then I hope it works for you. If you're trying to build that reach then I obviously know of no formula beyond perhaps sharing a very basic notion like writing passionate, energetic, and insightful rejections of bigotry or defences of diversity. They seem to get a lot of attention for various reasons.
Personally, I won't engage in it because I'm a wee bit boring so don't have any such reach and dislike the idea of transition hopes or stress being linked to something so fundamentally unpredictable. No matter what you or anyone else chooses, good luck.
Certainly a few do it for their surgeries. Whether they succeed or not is another matter.
Most successful Kickstarter campaigns usually are about giving "something" back to the donator, the project might be to produce an invention, music, art, film, etc. I know several people who have successfully funded the printing/publication of their webcomic through Kickstarter, maybe for around $5,000-$8,000 each or so. But part of that money was considered a 'pre-purchase' - plus these people offered incentives, such as additional personalised drawings/sketches, posters, badges, god knows what else. Money came largely from people familiar with their work and presumably liked it enough to want to see it in print. Plus they worked hard, promoting it through Facebook and Twitter and everywhere to the point of me being about to unfriend/unfollow them! Not sure how you would be able to do any of that via crowdfunding for top surgery. Good luck if you can though.
Ok. I kinda suspected that might be the case, but wanted to check it out anyway.
There are people who have successfully funded part or all of their surgeries this way. Some of them gave something back for donations over a certain amount, one guy funding top surgery gave folks bracelets braided from old shirts he'd outgrown on T. Many folks start a crowdfunding campaign and never get very far with it, but that could be said for non-trans related funding efforts.