Brooklyn, NY — If you’ve ever supported a friend or family member fighting cancer or another acute, life-changing disease, you probably know about CarePages and CaringBridge. The immensely popular sites offer free blogs to connect friends and family members during a health crisis. They’re designed to let people who’ve just become “patients” tell their stories and connect with other people like them.
Their only shortfall is that they don’t answer the very real question: what can I do to help?
This morning, on our internal Yammer network, Randy Brasof shared a new platform that might just answer that question:
Standbuy is a crowd funding platform specifically designed to reduce the financial stresses of cancer. It has the “connect, gather support and stay updated” features of CarePages with the added ability to create mini fundraisers for yourself or a loved one.
Each fundraiser has a deadline to create urgency, but, unlike some competitive crowd funding platforms, the donations are paid out whether the goal is met or not.
Standbuy was created by a young woman named Sashka Rothchild (pictured above). When she was 17, living in Santa Cruz, CA, her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer. Between the trips to radiation, the cooking and cleaning, and managing the aparatus of healthcare in this country, she was competely overwhelmed. Rothchild hopes that Standbuy will help people find a little more room in their day for healing instead of worrying about financial stress.
Check out their Tumblr, too, for powerful stories about living with cancer.
Posted by: Leigh Householder
About the Author:
As Managing Director of Innovation and Insights for Syneos Health Communications, Leigh is responsible for building and scaling a global team of healthcare experts who together help life science leaders better understand the complex lives, influences and expectations of their customers. Specifically, they uncover actionable insights that fuel empathy and creativity; lead co-creation events that let marketers learn from peers, trends, and new possibilities; and help clients identify the most valuable and useful new customer experiences to create.
Leigh has worked with Fortune 1000 companies to craft their digital, mobile, social and CRM strategies for nearly 20 years.She’s worked for category-leading agencies in retail, public affairs, B2B technology, and higher education. Prior to moving to Syneos Health Communications, she held several leadership roles at our largest agency, GSW. There, she founded an innovation practice fueled by the zeitgeist and spearheaded digital and innovation thinking across the business.
Leigh has taken a special interest in complex healthcare products that can change lives in meaningful ways. She was recently a strategic lead on the 3rd largest launch in pharmaceutical history: Tecfidera. Before that she had keys roles with Eli Lilly Oncology, Abbott Nutrition, Amgen Cardiovascular, and Eli Lilly Diabetes.
A critical part of Leigh’s work is trends and new ideas. Every year, she convenes a group of trend watchers from across our global network to identify the shifts most critical to healthcare marketers. This year, she led over 250 experts to experts to focus on the most important changes in the commercial, consumer, marketing, digital and healthcare landscapes. (See reports at trends.health)
Leigh is a sought-after writer and speaker. Recognized as one of the most inspiring people in the pharmaceutical industry by PharmaVoice and Top 10 Innovation Catalysts of 2017 by MM&M, Leigh also was recognized as a Rising Star by the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association (HBA) for her overt passion, industry thought leadership and significant contributions in new business, strategy and mentoring.
