YouCaring

What YouCaring does

YouCaring is a crowdfunding platform that enables individuals, families, and communities to raise money for personal causes including medical expenses, memorial and funeral costs, emergencies, education, charitable causes, and animal welfare. Founded in 2011 by Brock Ketcher, Naomi Ketcher, and Luke Miner after the founders returned from international mission trips, the platform was initially designed to help students fundraise for tuition before expanding across additional use cases. Word-of-mouth growth was rapid, with the platform ultimately facilitating more than $1 billion in cumulative donations before being acquired by GoFundMe in 2017–2018.

The platform's core technology consists of a self-serve web interface with native iOS and Android applications, donation processing infrastructure, and category-based discovery pages optimized for organic search. Notable platform features include Trust & Safety verification of fundraisers by human specialists, the GoFundMe Guarantee providing 100% donor refund protection, team fundraising capability, and a Donor-Advised Fund product (Giving Funds) for recurring charitable giving. Distribution is fully product-led: users create and promote their own campaigns without sales intervention, with marketing driven by content (Fundraising Blog, tips, success stories) and SEO-optimized category pages.

YouCaring's revenue model is transaction-based, deriving income from fees on donations processed through the platform. Specific take rates are not publicly disclosed. Go-to-market is consumer self-serve with no enterprise sales motion. Since its acquisition by GoFundMe, the YouCaring brand has been retired and its users have been migrated to gofundme.com; the entity now operates as an absorbed subsidiary with no separately reported financials.

Name

YouCaring

Legal name

YouCaring

Website

https://youcaring.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Acquired

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

YouCaring was a self-serve crowdfunding platform enabling individuals to raise funds for medical, memorial, emergency, education, and charitable causes. Founded in 2011 and acquired by GoFundMe in 2017–2018, it now operates as an absorbed subsidiary.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Online Fundraising / Crowdfunding Platform

akta.pro primary industry

Car Rental & Car-Sharing Booking Platforms (BPAMAIAF)

Keywords

• Online fundraising platform
• Personal crowdfunding
• Medical expense fundraising
• Donation processing platform
• Peer-to-peer giving

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Transaction-based crowdfunding fees: Platform generates revenue through transaction fees on donations processed through the platform. Fee structure is referenced via the 'Pricing' link but specific rates are not publicly disclosed on this page.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

YouCaring is an online crowdfunding platform that enables individuals, families, and organizations to create fundraisers for medical expenses, memorial/funeral costs, emergencies, education, charitable causes, and animal welfare. The platform processes online donations, verifies fundraisers through Trust & Safety specialists, and offers a donor money-back guarantee. Originally founded as an independent platform in 2011, YouCaring now operates as part of GoFundMe following its 2017–2018 acquisition.

Product overview

YouCaring was a crowdfunding platform founded in 2011 and now part of GoFundMe. The platform enables users to raise money for medical expenses, memorials, emergencies, education, nonprofits, and animal-related causes with features like fundraiser verification and money-back guarantees.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• YouCaring crowdfunding platform (medical, memorial, emergency, education, nonprofit, animal categories) Self-serve online crowdfunding platform for individuals, families, communities, and nonprofits to create and manage fundraisers across medical, memorial, emergency, education, nonprofit, and animal causes. Targets people seeking to raise money from personal networks and the broader donor community.
• Giving Funds (Donor-Advised Fund)

Quantifiable outcome

• Over $1 billion raised in total since founding
• +1 more outcomes

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• GoFundMe: The parent company of YouCaring and the largest personal crowdfunding platform globally. Directly comparable as it operates the same use-case categories (medical, memorial, emergency, education) and has absorbed YouCaring's user base and technology.
• Bonterra (Network for Good): Broader fundraising software suite for nonprofits including donation forms and peer-to-peer fundraising tools. Comparable in serving the nonprofit donation and crowdfunding space, though more focused on the organizational buyer.

Direct peers

• JustGiving: UK-headquartered personal fundraising platform for charity, medical, and memorial causes. Directly comparable product offering and target audience, with strong brand recognition in the UK and European markets.
• Fundly: Online crowdfunding platform serving personal causes, nonprofits, and community fundraising with a similar transaction-fee revenue model. Comparable in target customer (individual fundraisers) and cause-based category structure.
• Mightycause: Online fundraising platform for nonprofits, individuals, and community causes with a transaction-fee model. Comparable in supporting personal, memorial, medical, and community fundraising use cases similar to YouCaring's core segments.
• GiveForward: Medical fundraising platform acquired by YouCaring in 2017, indicating direct product overlap. Highly comparable in medical-bill-focused crowdfunding and was effectively a direct competitor prior to acquisition.
• Generosity.com: Personal crowdfunding platform acquired by YouCaring in 2018. Directly comparable as a cause-based crowdfunding destination for individuals, indicating near-identical product positioning prior to consolidation.

Emerging players

• Givebutter: Modern fundraising platform for nonprofits and individuals with donation processing and Donor-Advised Fund-like features. Comparable in offering Donor-Advised Funds (similar to Giving Funds) and serving overlapping nonprofit and individual cause segments.

Regional players

• Indiegogo: Crowdfunding platform with a broader scope spanning creative, entrepreneurial, and personal causes. Comparable in transaction-fee model and self-serve platform, though primarily oriented toward product/business campaigns rather than medical/emergency causes.

Others

• Patreon: Subscription-based creator funding platform. Adjacent in operating a donation/payment infrastructure for individual creators, though structurally different (recurring memberships vs. episodic fundraising) and targeting creators rather than medical/charity causes.

Market position

Strengths3 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/YouCaring
• Facebookfacebook.com/FreeOnlineFundraising
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/youcaring-com

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A2 records

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about YouCaring