Is there an online system to support donations to individuals in need?
A good friend of mine had a stroke yesterday.  It would be a terrible situation even if he weren't a freelancer with no health insurance:  he's now looking at the near-certainty of bankruptcy and the strong probability of homelessness in addition to being disabled.  Two years ago, another friend of mine, who'd been battling breast cancer, ran out of money about six months before she ran out of life.

I'm seeing this sort of situation happen with greater and greater frequency.    It's occurring to me that there are a lot of people in my age cohort (I'm 47) who are one crisis away from being seriously in need.  (I'm one.  If you're a middle-aged freelancer in the US, you probably are too.)

Every time this has happened, the response in the online communities I'm in has been similar:  people want to help but don't know how, and eventually, someone steps forward and agrees to collect donations, consolidate them, and funnel them to the person in need.  I've seen this particular wheel be reinvented three times in the last two years.

It seems clear to me that this is a problem space that a good web-based system could be a great help in.  But I haven't been able to find one.  What I've been able to find are systems that support non-profit organizations' fund-raising efforts.  There are a lot of reasons these systems aren't very useful for the situations I've seen, which (to use the buzzwords) have been as much about social networking as it is about e-commerce.

Before I decide to put all of my silly hobby projects aside and turn my attention to this problem, I'd like to be sure that I'm not reinventing the wheel myself.

Does anyone know of a web site or web application that supports the task of collecting and disbursing donations to individuals in need?
Is there an online system to support donations to individuals in need?
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A good friend of mine had a stroke yesterday.  It would be a terrible situation even if he weren't a freelancer with no health insurance:  he's now looking at the near-certainty of bankruptcy and the strong probability of homelessness in addition to being disabled.  Two years ago, another friend of mine, who'd been battling breast cancer, ran out of money about six months before she ran out of life.

I'm seeing this sort of situation happen with greater and greater frequency.    It's occurring to me that there are a lot of people in my age cohort (I'm 47) who are one crisis away from being seriously in need.  (I'm one.  If you're a middle-aged freelancer in the US, you probably are too.)

Every time this has happened, the response in the online communities I'm in has been similar:  people want to help but don't know how, and eventually, someone steps forward and agrees to collect donations, consolidate them, and funnel them to the person in need.  I've seen this particular wheel be reinvented three times in the last two years.

It seems clear to me that this is a problem space that a good web-based system could be a great help in.  But I haven't been able to find one.  What I've been able to find are systems that support non-profit organizations' fund-raising efforts.  There are a lot of reasons these systems aren't very useful for the situations I've seen, which (to use the buzzwords) have been as much about social networking as it is about e-commerce.

Before I decide to put all of my silly hobby projects aside and turn my attention to this problem, I'd like to be sure that I'm not reinventing the wheel myself.

Does anyone know of a web site or web application that supports the task of collecting and disbursing donations to individuals in need?