The Crowd-Funding Craze Comes to Nursing

Do you ever see patients that you really want to help? You know, the patients you wish you could support beyond their medical care or, at the very least make their time in the hospital better than the status quo. In my early days of practice I frequently saw a family in need at my clinic. The four children were cared for by their grandfather who had difficulty making ends meet. When I learned of their complicated living situation, I wanted to help.

These kids weren’t just any kids, they were special. Despite having very little, they were kind, respectful, well behaved, and best of all they looked out for each other. When I discovered this family didn’t have air conditioning in the 100 degree summer heat we were experiencing, the staff at our clinic gathered together donating a few dollars each here and there to purchase a portable AC unit for their home. We contributed some children’s clothing and food as well then delivered the items to their home. This is crowd-funding, a collection of individuals contributing to a project.

Crowd-funding has become quite popular and recently the trend hit nursing. Helping your patients beyond the scope of your job description can get a bit sticky. There are privacy laws and professional considerations to take into account. Fortunately, organization The Monday Life has formalized a way for nurses to give to their patients through crowd-funding site Healing Campaigns.

Rainesford Alexandra with The Monday Life has graciously agreed to give us more information about Healing Campaigns so that we, as nurse practitioners, can get involved.

The Monday Life’s Crowd-Funding Site, Healing Campaigns, Helps Nurses Fund Ideas

For nurses with great ideas, love for their patients, and ten extra minutes…the wait is over.

Healing Campaigns, a crowd-funding site for nurses, is making it possible for nurses to bring a little extra healing and a little more fun to hospitalized children. By enabling them to create, promote, and fund their own hospital projects online, Healing Campaigns makes it easy for nurses to better patient experiences with their own ideas.

Founded by The Monday Life, a non-profit organization devoted to improving patient environments of hospitalized children, Healing Campaigns is simple, accessible and fast. Not only can nurses change the world of pediatric healthcare with their own innovation, but with Healing Campaigns, they can do so in just ten minutes. Long gone are the days of never-ending grant forms usually required for nurses to get what they need. Healing Campaigns breaks it into three simple steps:

  1. Nurses Log On.
  2. They create a campaign that benefits the children they work with. Art supplies, iPads, and music therapy have been popular.
  3. People across the country fund the campaign.

The effects have been groundbreaking. Campaigns at Duke Children’s Hospital and North Carolina Children’s Hospital have been funded with incredible results. The first campaign took less than twenty-four hours to fund, and thousands of dollars have been raised.

Healing Campaigns can be utilized by any hospital in the country, people can donate any amount to any project that catches their eye, and it’s 100% free for nurses to use. From music lessons at UNC Hospitals to a resource library of books for an inpatient adolescent unit, Healing Campaigns makes nurse’s imaginations come to life- and patient’s dreams come true.

The more ideas, the more campaigns, the more patients heal faster and have fun along the way. We know you have ideas- and we want to hear them. Log on to Healing Campaigns to create your campaign and follow us on Twitter at @themondaylife. Let’s spread the power of healing!

Thanks to Rainesford for telling us more about Healing Campaigns. What will you choose for your campaign?

 

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