GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan on scaling generosity and asking for help

Executive overview

GoFundMe has facilitated $15 billion in giving across 19 countries, yet its CEO argues the platform has barely scratched the surface of human willingness to help. The hardest part isn't giving — it's asking. Research shows people underestimate others' willingness to help them by half.

Operating as a for-profit lets GoFundMe out-innovate non-profits on efficiency, talent, and scale — delivering 97 cents of every dollar raised directly to beneficiaries.

Joining as CEO on the first day of the pandemic

• Tim Cadogan started March 2, 2020; the company went fully remote within his first week.
• His planned "open-source learning" curriculum — internal experts teaching him in person — was abandoned immediately.
• Learning happened by doing: scaling systems to handle a surge in demand across Europe and the US.
• Phase one of COVID fundraising was medical (PPE, hospital capacity); within weeks it expanded to small businesses and furloughed employees.
• Verifying businesses as legitimate campaign beneficiaries required rapid scaling of back-end operations with payment partners.
• The experience confirmed the platform's importance: "People need this system, and we've got to be our best for them."

Why GoFundMe operates as a for-profit

• Competing for top talent in product, technology, trust and safety, security, legal, and finance requires for-profit compensation structures.
• Constant innovation in user experience and payment infrastructure demands ongoing reinvestment that non-profits struggle to fund.
• Efficiency result: 97 cents of every dollar raised reaches the beneficiary; the remaining 3 cents covers payment processing — comparable to a standard card transaction.
• The for-profit structure is claimed to be more capital-efficient than any non-profit alternative at this scale.

The harder side of asking for help

• Most people don't relish asking for help; GoFundMe actively designs experiences to lower that barrier.
• Social psychology research: people underestimate others' willingness to help them by approximately 50%.
• 15 million messages of gratitude were sent through the platform in 2021.
• The next frontier is helping recipients communicate impact — not just thanks, but what changed in their life.
• Example: Alondra Carmona gave up her college savings to prevent her family's eviction; a GoFundMe raised $175,000 and sent her to Barnard College.
• Cadogan's call to action: becoming an organizer (not just a donor) multiplies individual impact by 20–25x.

Trust, safety, and content moderation

• GoFundMe uses a blend of algorithmic detection (phrases, words, categories) and human review.
• Community reporting is a key input: friends and family flag fraudulent campaigns, which rarely gain traction because initial sharing circles catch inconsistencies.
• Policy on violent crimes: if charged with a violent crime (FBI definition), legal-defense fundraisers are not permitted; if acquitted, fundraisers for other expenses are allowed.
• Rules are applied consistently regardless of the public profile of the individual involved.

Advocacy and the GoFundMe.org foundation

• Cadogan's threshold for corporate advocacy: a large pattern of need visible on the platform that warrants adding GoFundMe's data and voice to public debate.
• COVID relief letter to Congress was driven by volume of desperate need seen platform-wide.
• The AAPI fund was launched in response to attacks on elderly Asian community members; it has raised $7–8 million for local charities.
• GoFundMe.org is a separate 501(c)3 that sets up and disburses pooled funds as grants to campaigns or organisations.
• Notable funds: Small Business Relief Initiative, wildfire funds, AAPI fund, and America's Food Fund ($45 million raised with Laurene Powell Jobs, Emerson Collective, and Leonardo DiCaprio for Feeding America and World Central Kitchen).

Hybrid work and the shift to explicit communication

• Cadogan is candid about anxiety around the return to office: not a return to anything, but entry into an uncertain hybrid future.
• Concerns: equity between in-room and remote participants, meeting logistics, loss of the "everyone on the same screen" equality of fully remote work.
• Approach: humility, experimentation, sharing what works across the CEO community.
• Unexpected finding from fully remote hiring: deep virtual time investment works — senior hires made without in-person meetings performed as expected.
• Key lesson: virtual communication forces more explicit expression, compensating for lost non-verbal cues — a discipline that carries over positively to in-person interaction.
• Async-first culture (writing things down) reinforced the value of explicitness across the organisation.

What's next for GoFundMe

• Current platform presence: 19 countries for campaign creation; donations received from ~180 countries.
• Priority: expand campaign creation and fund receipt to many more countries.
• Underlying thesis: the volume of peer-to-peer giving possible in the world dwarfs current activity — the platform is "a thimble" relative to unmet need.
• Trend tailwind: people increasingly want to help each other directly rather than through large institutions.