In October 2013, Frank and Riley Grun gave birth to a son named Christian. An MRI scan revealed a rare malformation in his brain, because of which he also suffered from cardiac failure and pulmonary issues.
He was rushed into brain surgery at 4 days old, and was given a 7% chance of survival. Over the next three months he received two more brain surgeries, suffering a stroke during the second, but Christian survived. Christian continued to suffer from vision and neurological issues which require frequent, expensive rehabilitation therapy.
Each session costs $120. Christian required three sessions per week for one year.
Family friend, Sean Larkin, set out to raise funds to help Christian’s family pay for his treatments. His goal was to raise $17,280, enough money to cover 144 treatment sessions.
Sean Larkin, good friend of the Grun family and a father to be, wanted to setup a personal fundraising campaign to help them cover the family’s medical expenses that also provided credibility to the Grun family’s cause. Larkin knew such legitimacy comes from third parties raising funds as opposed to the family raising funds themselves.
Larkin needed to find an affordable, user-friendly platform that provided prestigious design and customization options, with the ability for personal fundraising pages so their friends could join in the effort. He was looking for a platform that was user-friendly for both fundraisers and donors.
Larkin selected CauseVox as his fundraising platform because of its user-friendly interface, competitive pricing, and great customer support. CauseVox removed the barriers that have traditionally held small organizations and individuals back in seeking the fundraising support he needed.
The campaign was motivated and created by their friends. With CauseVox, they were easily able to establish a peer-to-peer fundraising strategy within their group of friends.
A total of 7 friends created their own personal fundraising pages, writing their own appeals and weaving the Grun Family’s stories of friendship into their campaign. The organic, authentic nature of the effort resonated with supporters through their personalized appeals, which invited others into Christian’s story, compelling them to come to his aid.
The campaign was launched on Easter Sunday morning, 2015. Team Christian was comprised of just seven individuals. The team raised approximately $4,500 in the first 48 hours. By the end of the campaign, they succeeded in raising more than their goal: enough money to fund 147 sessions, all of Christian’s sessions for the rest of the year.
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