Kairol Rosenthal is here today to share with us an easy-to-understand guide to the newest health insurance changes. Kairol was diagnosed with cancer at 27 and discovered two days later she had been dropped by her insurance. Since then, she has spent the last decade fighting for her own health insurance, advocating for other young adult cancer patients, and researching and writing Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s. Take it away Kairol:
If you are confused by the new changes to health insurance that happened last week, you aren’t alone. Yes, it takes some energy gnawing through this red tape lingo, but it is well worth the energy and I’ve tried to simplify it. Why? Because it might save you money and even save your life.
As members of a young startup ourselves, we here at GiveForward always love to see other new companies doing well. It’s especially cool when we find out about these companies through their use of our site, as is the case with Wishadoo!, an exciting free service that enables its users to connect with others to help people fulfill their wishes.
Wishadoo! founder Dena Patrick likes to call her site “a CraigsList of Compassion,” and we love that because we are totally enamored with anything and everything CraigsList these days. So far, Dena seems to be pretty enamored with GiveForward too, so everybody wins.
“I searched for over a year, looking for a good symbiotic partner of sorts for Wishadoo! community members to use when fundraising is needed,” Dena says. “GiveForward met all the criteria I was searching for, and the platform has worked beautifully thus far. I also appreciate [GiveForward’s] mission, as it’s very much in alignment with that of Wishadoo!, which is also a social entrepreneurial venture. Indeed, both are about providing tools in order to create and empower communities in a variety of ways [and] with integrity.”
As many of you already know, GiveForward had the honor of participating in this summer’s Excelerate Labs technology incubator program. On August 31, all the companies in the program gathered at the House of Blues in Chicago to pitch their business plans to more than 200 potential investors. To use a cliché, make a confusing sports pun, and give you an honest recap all at once, our pitch was a home run. read more…
On Saturday afternoon, Janet Myers of Bainbridge Island, WA helped put GiveForward over the $2 million mark in total donations with her contribution to the Haiti Relief Effort, a fundraiser to help send Stephanie and Shannon to Fond Parisien, where they will enlist as relief workers in a field hospital. This is a fantastic cause and we are confident that these two ladies will reach their goal soon thanks to helpful people like Janet.
It’s so cool to now be able to truthfully say that we’ve technically helped people raise millions of dollars, so we want to express our gratitude to not only Janet, but all of the people who have ever donated to fundraisers on GiveForward or encouraged their friends and family to do so. Thank you all so much! We couldn’t have made it this far without you, and if we may say so, we’re excited about our future together.
Those who have the pleasure of knowing Jonny Imerman are aware that he has almost exclusively worn an Imerman Angels shirt for the last three years. This all changed earlier this week, however, when Jonny donned our Giveasaurus shirt.
The agreement heading into the contest was that a GiveForward victory would put Jonny in a Giveasaurus t-shirt for a day, while an Imerman Angels victory would leave our co-founder Ethan Austin in an Imerman Angels-branded banana suit for a week.
Even though the GiveForward squad ultimately came up short and lost the bet, Jonny and his Director of Operations, Aaron Hadley, were good sports and decided to wear the Givesaurus shirts anyway. We couldn’t believe our eyes when they sent us the picture. Enjoy this moment because you may never see Jonny in this shirt again… unless, of course, we win round two of the contest next year!
Though GiveForward users are clearly hip to the advantages of online fundraising, we’ve seen a great number of them also throw offline fundraising events to help a loved one pay for medical expenses. These users have proven that offline fundraising events can be a great way to supplement online fundraising efforts.
We’ve noticed lately that, much like those seeking alternative cancer treatments, an increasing number of people with rare diseases are using GiveForward to raise money for their often-higher medical costs.
This actually isn’t too surprising because we recently learned that roughly 25 million Americans are living with rare diseases. Most people have probably never heard of these ailments and thus don’t even think to help because they aren’t aware that their help is needed. We are very excited by the indication that we might be able to help bridge this gap, however.
We currently have people fundraising for: a woman undergoing treatment for angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer; a woman undergoing treatment for hemangiopericytoma, another rare type of cancerous tumor; and a 2-year-old undergoing brain surgery as a result of complications brought on by Sturge-Weber Syndrome.
It’s good to see these folks getting the help they need, and it’s also nice to see an increased awareness – even if just around this office – with regards to these rare diseases.
If you have a rare disease (or you know anyone who does) and you want to help get the word out, email a little bit of information to dshar@giveforward.org.
Both organizations went all out for this competition, and we want to thank everyone who made it possible (including the many Chipotle employees who posed for pictures with us). This event was a ton of fun, and as soon as we finish digesting, we will begin to plot and scheme for our next shindig. In the meantime, check out our Facebook page for some awesome, mildly disturbing snapshots from the action!
In an effort to strengthen the weakest member of the team (me), GiveForward brought in a world-class competitive eating coach. Watch what happened, show it to all your friends and family, and (if you’re in the Chicago area) come out to see if it paid off tomorrow!
Who: GiveForward interns vs. Imerman Angels interns
What: First Annual Burrito Battle Royale
When: 1:00 p.m. on July 28, 2010
Where: Chipotle (6 W Grand Ave, Chicago, IL)
Those in the Chicago area are strongly encouraged to come cheer us on. Those who just want to help a good cause, regardless of geographic location, can make a donation here and get one of our team jerseys (aka a Giveasaurus T-shirt) in return. All of the money raised will be donated to Imerman Angels, a non-profit cancer support organization that cannot beat us in an eating competition but has proven to be amazing at helping people beat cancer.
We’ve had a number of fundraisers on GiveForward for people with colon cancer. We’ve obviously enjoyed helping those people, and we’re now very excited to reach out to even more folks with this awful disease by partnering with the Colorectal Cancer Coalition, “a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization that fights colorectal cancer through research, empowerment and access.”
C3 is a great organization that helps a lot people, and we are very proud to have the opportunity to help them help others. Just today, they posted a blog about how the “uninsured with rectal cancer are more likely to die,” and we are really hoping we can change that by helping all those uninsured patients raise the money they need to get proper treatment. For more information on how you can help this cause, check out their website at http://www.fightcolorectalcancer.org.
Kairol Rosenthal is here today to share with us an easy-to-understand guide to the newest health insurance changes. Kairol was diagnosed with cancer at 27 and discovered two days later she had been dropped by her insurance. Since then, she has spent the last decade fighting for her own health insurance, advocating for other young adult cancer patients, and researching and writing Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s. Take it away Kairol:
