Growth of COVID-19 Related Crowdfunding Campaigns on Twitter in March 2020
May 2020
This Spotlight on Health explores Americans’ donations to cover coronavirus-related expenses during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic, including crowdfunding campaigns on social media.
One in five Americans (about 39 million people) reported that they or someone in their household had contributed to a person or organization raising money for coronavirus-related expenses during the first month of the pandemic, according to an AmeriSpeak® Spotlight on Health national survey from NORC.
Among those who donated, almost 77 percent (30 million people) made direct contributions to a person or organization. Another 17 percent (7 million people) donated via online cash transfers through Venmo, CashApp, or Zelle. Six million people also donated through crowdfunding sites, such as GoFundMe, which enable people to raise funds from a large number of donors.
Using data from NORC’s Social Data Collaboratory, we conducted a simultaneous analysis of Twitter users posting links to crowdfunding platforms during March. We found over 70,000 tweets about campaigns raising money for people affected by the coronavirus.
This visualization was created by NORC’s VizStudio, a creative community of experts who turn complex data into compelling visual stories.