Be Part of the Story: The San Diego-Union Tribune Partners With GoFundMe
Helping San Diegans Help Each Other
By Rob Solomon, GoFundMe CEO
Today I’m proud to announce the launch of a groundbreaking new partnership between The San Diego Union-Tribune, the region’s most trusted news source, and GoFundMe, the world’s largest social fundraising platform. Beginning now, Union-Tribune readers will have the opportunity to start fundraising campaigns directly from Union-Tribune online stories to help people in their community and have a lasting impact on the San Diego area.
We’ve already seen the remarkable things that can happen when news readers want to get more involved. Earlier this year, a California woman named Margaret Cotts read a piece about a foster father named Mohamed Bzeek who cares for terminally children. Moved by the selflessness described in the story, Margaret started a GoFundMe for Mohamed and went on to raise over $400,000 to help him better care for his foster children.
We’ve already seen the remarkable things that can happen when news readers want to get more involved.
And we’ve seen how deeply San Diegans care about their community and help one another. When a complete stranger returned her lost cashier’s cash of $676, San Diego resident Yesenia Ortiz-Del Valle couldn’t get the man’s selflessness out of her mind. She started a GoFundMe called “We rise by lifting others” to help this good samaritan who was homeless and unemployed, living out of a hotel with his family. The campaign went viral, raising more than $20,000 from over 600 people to give this kind-hearted man a fresh start.
Yesenia’s life-changing campaign is one of more than 40,000 GoFundMes started by San Diegans, who’ve raised nearly $50 million on our platform. In fact, GoFundMe itself was founded in San Diego back in 2010, and our largest office remains in San Diego. This San Diego-born and bred company now has a global reach — GoFundMe is now available in 18 countries, and donations have come from nearly every country on earth — but as always, real change begins at home.
That’s why partnering with the San Diego Union-Tribune couldn’t be more fitting. For nearly 150 years, the San Diego Union-Tribune has been delivering news to doorsteps across San Diego, providing critical information and a valuable service to San Diegans each morning. Traditionally, the conversation about the daily news started over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table and continued in the office with your colleagues or over a beer with your friends.
Today, we’re living in a world that has been transformed by the digital revolution of journalism. Now the news is delivered right to your inbox or smartphone. Your friends and family and people you’ve never met are discussing the events of the day over email or on Facebook and Twitter. The 24-hour news cycle delivers breaking stories all day, every day — and it has moved the conversation online.
Today, we’re living in a world that has been transformed by the digital revolution of journalism.
But up until now, there wasn’t an easy way to take action online. This new partnership between GoFundMe and the Union-Tribune changes the dynamic. Instead of just discussing or debating a story, now you can take action to raise money for a person or a cause. Instead of passive news consumption, anyone can now be a part of the story by creating positive change for those in need. The news has evolved a lot in the last few years, and we’re confident this latest development will allow readers to make their voices heard in a new way.
Compared to the Union-Tribune’s nearly 150 years of community service, GoFundMe’s seven years may seem a scratch on the surface. But recently, GoFundMe celebrated two milestones: more than 40 million donors on our platform have helped to raise more than $4 billion. And while those numbers are impressive, it still takes one person at a time to start a campaign. With this new partnership, we aim to make it as simple and as effective as possible for people who want to help to do just that.
