Frequently Asked Questions

Anyone can start a campaign by submitting an initial request through the Request Help option. You’ll share basic details about the medical need, timeframe, health insurance, and support network.

You’ll also provide your name, phone number, email, and state so we can follow up and determine whether Help Hope Live is the right fit.

If you move forward, an authorized person—such as the client, spouse, parent of a minor child, power of attorney, or legal guardian—will complete the full application. This includes more detailed information about the diagnosis and medical provider, financial and household situation, and any authorized team members who will help manage the campaign.

Successful campaigns are dependent upon the support of the client’s community and extended network. Campaigns can range from $2,500 and under to $400,000+.

For catastrophic injury clients, fundraising needs to begin as soon as possible after the injury; the first 18 months after the injury has proven to be the time when the community is most motivated to help.

For transplant clients it is never too early to begin fundraising to prepare for transplant-related expenses not covered by insurance. If a medical professional has said that a transplant is in the client’s future, it is time to begin fundraising.

Yes: you can start a fundraising campaign to help offset COVID-19 medical costs. Learn more about COVID-19 campaigns here. You can call 800-642-8399 to explore your fundraising options or submit a campaign request online.

Yes! To get started, fill out a campaign request here. Select “Transplant” as the reason for the campaign.

Help Hope Live supports fundraising campaigns in the United States and Puerto Rico.

We permit our clients to raise funds for certain treatments or therapies outside of the U.S. that are approved by the FDA or currently under FDA initial review and recommended by a medical professional.

Help Hope Live does not endorse or recommend specific treatments or therapies to our clients and cannot comment on the efficacy of one treatment over another. We encourage our clients to research the best treatment options for them.

Having no health insurance does not instantly disqualify you from fundraising: for each client, we work to assess whether their personal profile is a good match for our services.

There are times when an individual’s medical expenses can’t realistically be met through community fundraising. We do our very best to meet the needs of as many clients as we can and take pride in helping people identify many new opportunities to build support within their communities.

We work with clients, their families, and volunteers to provide a framework to launch a fundraising campaign in the client’s community, helping:

• Establish a volunteer network
• Write appeal letters for community circulation
• Provide step-by-step instructions for fundraising events
• Design flyers for events
• Provide media support and more

We provide support via email and phone for all of your in-person and online fundraising efforts over the lifetime of the campaign.

Contact us Monday through Friday from 9 am to 6 pm ET.

Help Hope Live is a nonprofit fundraising solution designed specifically for medical needs. Unlike for-proft plaftorms like GoFundMe, we provide one-on-one fundraising support, require medical verification for every campaign, and can pay medical bills and related expenses directly when possible. Donations are tax deductible to donors, and we offer the greatest possible protection for asset-based benefits (Always check with your Medicaid/benefits office to be sure).

Check out an explanation of Our Advantage here.

Fundraising with Help Hope Live is free for clients. 

For check donations, a 3% administrative fee is deducted from donations to help cover the cost of providing personalized 1-1 support, tools, and resources that help campaigns succeed.

For online donations, including credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and bank transfers, a 2.65% third-party processing fee applies. The total fee for online donations is 5.65%.

Donors can choose to cover these fees when they give.

Yes! If your ability to plan in-person events is currently disrupted or if you simply prefer to fundraise online, your Client Services Coordinator can help you with virtual fundraising. Resources include help planning online events, digital flyers for social media, Facebook Fundraisers, and email campaigns. Check out our Guide to Virtual Fundraising for some ideas.

We prevent fraud in fundraising by operating differently than crowdfunding platforms—here’s how.

Our nonprofit verifies every client’s medical diagnosis directly with a medical professional. This ensures that donors can be confident the client campaigns they support are centered on a legitimate medical need.

Our nonprofit also administers all funds raised in honor of clients. Donors can be certain that all donations made will be used responsibly and used only to cover verified medical and related expenses.

When a client begins fundraising with Help Hope Live, they are required to identify a medical professional who can log into our website and confirm their medical diagnosis and their anticipated associated expenses. Until a medical professional confirms their diagnosis, the client cannot request funds from Help Hope Live to cover medical and related expenses.

Donors can tell that a client campaign has been medically verified by looking for the verification checkmark next to their campaign picture on the client’s Campaign Page.

Once you reach your fundraising goal, you can continue to fundraise as long as you still have a medical and financial need. You can choose whether you want your fundraising indicator to remain public, whether you want our team to help reset your indicator to accurately reflect an additional unmet need, or whether you want to make your fundraising indicator private after you reach your goal.

If you don’t reach your fundraising goal, you can still submit medical and related expenses to Help Hope Live. In other words, reaching your goal is not a requirement to receive assistance from Help Hope Live.

You can choose at any time to lower your fundraising goal, hide your fundraising indicator from public view, or make other adjustments to your Campaign Page.

When you begin fundraising with Help Hope Live, we’ll help you develop a fundraising strategy that will work best for your needs to help with medical bills. Your Help Hope Live team will be a fundraising resource for you and anyone in your community who is willing to help you.

You and your community do the fundraising, and your Help Hope Live team provides support every step of the way.

Our clients enjoy the unique advantages that come from working with a trusted nonprofit.

We work with clients, their families, and volunteers to provide a framework to launch a fundraising campaign in the client’s community, helping:

• Establish a volunteer network
• Write appeal letters for community circulation
• Provide step-by-step instructions for fundraising events
• Design flyers for events
• Provide media support and more

We provide support via email and phone for all of your in-person and online fundraising efforts over the lifetime of the campaign.

Contact us Monday through Friday from 9 am to 6 pm ET.

All funds raised are managed by our nonprofit. Donations in honor of a client are therefore tax deductible.

There is no minimum contribution required to fundraise with Help Hope Live. However, Help Hope Live clients must show that they are actively participating in community-based fundraising in order to receive ongoing assistance from a Help Hope Live Regional Fund.

Yes! Each Help Hope Live client campaign is given a mobile-friendly Campaign Page at helphopelive.org that displays all fundraising activities in one place. Visitors can quickly find how to donate, read your story, view updates and photos, register for fundraisers, and share the page directly to social media.

Each client is given a login to manage and personalize the Campaign Page at their convenience, and can create separate logins for Team Members (fundraising volunteers) to help with their online efforts.

Help Hope Live Campaign Pages can be easily shared to increase visibility and online donations.

Because Help Hope Live maintains discretion over all funds raised, they likely won’t jeopardize eligibility for asset-based assistance programs. Always check with your state’s Medicaid/benefits office to be sure.

Clients who work with us can apply for corporate grants and similar opportunities to benefit Help Hope Live in their honor.

No: Help Hope Live is not able to accept transfers of funds from a crowdfunding platform.

No: you can fundraise with Help Hope Live for a lifetime as long as you continue to have a medical and financial need, and as long as you continue to actively fundraise in your community and communicate with our team.

Donations collected in your honor will remain available throughout your life, or as long as there is money in the applicable Regional Restricted Fund to cover medically related expenses.

If your campaign has had no contact or activity (fundraising or disbursements) for three years, we may deem the campaign inactive.

Yes: we use the web’s top automated accessibility resource, accessiBe, to ensure our website and Campaign Pages are as accessible as possible. Users can access the accessiBe menu by clicking the gold circle button on the lefthand side of any website page.

Learn more about our commitment to digital accessibility here.

Once a client begins fundraising in their community for Help Hope Live and we have received a completed Application verifying medical and financial need, they are eligible to submit fund requests to us to cover unmet medical needs.

Sample Expenses

• Health insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments
• Medications
• Transportation to and from transplant center
• Air ambulance for emergency visits to transplant center
• Relocation or moving expenses due to transplant
• Temporary housing due to relocation
• Mileage, tolls, and parking fees for visits to transplant center
• Lodging expenses for patient and support person
• Hospital telephone and television privileges
• Uninsured transplant-related procedures
• Living donor expenses
• Search fees for bone marrow donor match
• Burial/cremation expenses in the event patient passes away

(See additional expenses and guidelines: Help Hope Live Fund Disbursement Guidelines for Transplant)

Which expenses does Help Hope Live pay for catastrophic injury or illness?

Sample Expenses:

• Health insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments
• Medications
• Travel expenses for rehabilitation and treatment
• Relocation or moving expenses due to injury (such as in the case of moving to be closer to a rehabilitation center or hospital for treatment)
• Temporary housing due to relocation
• Mileage, tolls, and parking fees for visits to rehabilitation center or hospital
• Specially equipped vans and durable medical equipment
• Home modification related to injury
• Home health care services
• Physical therapy and vocational rehabilitation
• Experimental treatments
• Burial/cremation expenses in the event a client passes away

(See additional expenses and guidelines: Help Hope Live Fund Disbursement Guidelines for Catastrophic Injury/Illness)

Yes! Our preference is always to pay direct to vendor via check or direct deposit when possible rather than reimbursing you for out-of-pocket expenses you’ve covered yourself.

Donations collected in honor of a client with unmet medical needs are available throughout the person’s life, or as long as there is money in the applicable Regional Restricted Fund to cover medically related expenses.

Campaigns in which there has been no contact or activity (fundraising or disbursements) for three years are deemed inactive.

Yes: once you are logged in, you can see a list of disbursements on your Dashboard. For more information on viewing disbursements, see this post.

Donor preference is important to us.

When you make an online donation to Help Hope Live in honor of a client, you can choose whether to make your name, contact information, and the amount of your donation available to the client and authorized team members.

When you donate via check, please specify in writing if you wish for your name or donation amount to be kept private.

All clients receive financial support according to their medical and financial need. Every effort is made to honor the donor’s intent in making available to the client assistance for their medically related expenses.

All online donations are acknowledged immediately with an email receipt for tax purposes.

For check donations of $250 or more, Help Hope Live also sends a letter of acknowledgement. For credit card donations of $250 or more, donors can reach out to Help Hope Live to request a letter of acknowledgement.

For donations under $250, the IRS recognizes the donor’s cancelled check or credit card statement as proof of a charitable donation.

On average, 95¢ of every $1 raised in honor of Help Hope Live clients is used to cover unmet medical expenses.

Yes. IRA gifts are accepted according to your administrator’s policies and processed as check donations, subject to our standard 3% administrative fee. Please instruct your administrator or financial institution to include your name and address and note “In honor of [Client Name]” in the memo line so we can record your gift accurately.

Yes. The minimum donation is $10.

We’re so grateful that you want to help! There are a few things you can do to stay connected with us and get involved.

You can follow our Latest blog and check our Events page to learn about virtual and in-person ways to support our nonprofit. You can subscribe to our Latest and to client Campaign Pages if a particular client’s story speaks to you so that you can keep up with their need and potentially donate if your circumstances change in the future.

You can also plan your own fundraising efforts to benefit our nonprofit. From getting your workplace to fundraise to livestreaming for our mission and beyond, every single effort you make to support us makes a huge impact on our team and capabilities.

We’d love to hear from you on our socials—shoot us a direct message to talk about ways we can work together to help hope live.

Call or email Help Hope Live to request customized materials like letters, fundraiser flyers, business cards, coin bank wraps, postcards, or press releases.

There are certain disclosures that are required to be on materials that are used for charitable fundraising. All fundraising materials must be approved by Help Hope Live. Do not use any flyers or outreach materials until you get approval from your Help Hope Live contact.

Visit our Contact page for information.