Our purpose

Another chance
for a signal boost.

Boost Board exists to help the stories stuck at zero — or close to it, stuck in park, or stalled after a handful of supporters — get a chance to be seen.

Why this exists

Crowdfunding asks for a crowd.
Not everyone has one.

Picture a school bulletin board covered in thousands of drawings — but the light only shines on the ones that already have a gold star. If nobody's noticed a drawing yet, it stays in the dark corner.

Boost Board is like someone with a flashlight, pointing it at one hidden drawing every single day so people can finally see it.

The problem: big platforms tend to promote what's already popular. A brand-new fundraiser with no donations yet — or one that stalled early — gets buried at the bottom.
The spotlight: real volunteers pick one overlooked campaign each day and put it front and center.
Fair turns: it changes daily, so more campaigns get a turn.
Hands-off: we never touch the money. When you give, it goes straight to the person who needs it.

1. Algorithms count people out

Big fundraising websites usually promote campaigns that are already popular. If someone needs help but hasn't received their first dollar yet, the computer hides them at the bottom.

2. Predatory "boost your campaign" services

There are real, reputable marketing and promotion services that help fundraisers find a wider audience — and they earn it. But people trying to raise money for a real need are also frequently approached by a different kind of offer: promises of visibility, virality, or guaranteed shares, aimed at organizers at their most vulnerable moment.

The harder truth is that the people most likely to be approached this way are the ones who can't afford genuine help in the first place. If someone had a marketing budget, they probably wouldn't be asking strangers for help covering essentials. That gap is what gets exploited. We wrote more about this pattern.

3. A story* about giving someone a good day

There's an old This American Life episode about a comedy group, Improv Everywhere, who learned that a small unknown band was about to play its first-ever New York show to what would likely be an almost-empty room. So about three dozen volunteers learned the band's songs and showed up acting like devoted, longtime superfans.

It worked, for a while — until the band realized the crowd wasn't real, which left them unsettled rather than grateful. Manufactured encouragement, even offered with real love, can curdle once the truth comes out.

Years later, the band came back and performed live at Improv Everywhere's own anniversary show — this time as themselves, on their own terms. The good intention was real. It just needed honesty to land.

*You can hear the full story yourself at thisamericanlife.org.

Attention, with intention.

The principles behind the campaigns we spotlight and the support we encourage.

01 /

Look beyond momentum

Our focus is on campaigns with little or no support, rather than the ones already drawing a crowd. A quiet start deserves a closer look.

02 /

Keep people's dignity intact

A story belongs to the person living it. Share the original campaign, respect what the organizer chooses to disclose, and leave private details private.

03 /

Make room for small acts

Giving money isn't the only way to help. One thoughtful share can give a campaign a whole new audience — the research backs this up.

Clear about our role.
Honest about our limits.

Trust starts with knowing what a spotlight means — and what it doesn't.

Understand the process

We help stories travel. We don't collect donations.

Boost Board only signal boosts donations randomly, as submitted or brought to our attention. If you choose to contribute, you'll do so on the campaign's original fundraising platform, under its own terms and protections.

Our goal isn't a sea of $0 campaign pages

We're not trying to advertise or encourage zero-donation fundraisers as some kind of category to collect. If a campaign already has a donor or two by the time it's featured — through sharing, submission activity, or a platform's own algorithm reacting to that — that's not a miss. Our real goal is the opposite: no zero-dollar fundraisers at all. "Zero" here is really shorthand for low activity, not always a literal $0. <3

We're a small volunteer team

A few of our volunteers have been going through hard times of our own — that's a real part of why this exists. We're under construction, DIY and volunteer-run, so if you run into bugs or anything that seems off, please just let us know. At this time, we've been hand-selecting campaigns to boost ourselves since there isn't inbound-submission volume yet — we'll keep doing that whenever submissions are slow.

Zero funding isn't proof in either direction. It doesn't make a campaign unworthy. Give each story the care and consideration it deserves.

A few common questions.

Straight answers, not fine print.

Does Boost Board verify campaigns?

Every submission is reviewed by a real person, checking that it's genuine and safe to share — but a listing here isn't a guarantee or endorsement. Review the organizer and campaign details yourself before giving, the same as you would anywhere else.

The donation count here doesn't match what I see on the campaign — is that a mistake?

Probably not. Boost Board isn't automated, so the numbers shown here reflect the last time a real person checked, not the current moment. Keeping this live would mean pulling data directly from each platform in real time, and most crowdfunding sites don't open that up to outside tools — for good reason, given the privacy questions that come with it. Some platforms, GoFundMe included, do offer a live donation ticker, but that's a tool built for the organizer to embed on their own page, not something a third-party site like ours can plug into. If a number looks stale, that's expected, not an error — though we're always glad to hear about it through the "Report / Update" link on that campaign's card.

What does "Fundraiser Not Found" or something similar mean?

It means the crowdfunding platform or the organizer has removed or changed the web address for that campaign. This can happen for all kinds of reasons and isn't necessarily a red flag. Feel free to let us know through the "Report / Update" link, and we'll remove it from the rotation.

Does Boost Board collect or process donations?

No. We never touch, hold, or process any money. When you give, you click through to a campaign's own page and donate there directly, under that platform's own terms and protections. See our privacy policy for more on what we do and don't do with information.

Can I suggest my own campaign?

Yes — use Submit a Campaign. You don't need to be the organizer either, as long as the campaign is already public.

What if I notice something suspicious about a listed campaign?

Use the "Report / Update" link on that campaign's card on the board. Reports are reviewed by a real person, not resolved automatically, and we don't publish who filed one.

Is a listing the same as an endorsement?

No. We aim to feature genuine campaigns, but inclusion here isn't a verification service and shouldn't be read as one. Boost Board isn't a charity or nonprofit — it's a volunteer-run tool for visibility, nothing more.

When Boost Board updates or adds information about a campaign, does that mean you own it?

No. Any time we update, correct, or add information about a listed campaign, we're helping to signal boost it — nothing more. We're not claiming ownership of any material, photos, or the campaign itself. All of that belongs to the organizer, on the platform they chose to use.

Your story shouldn't end at zero.

If your campaign has stalled before finding its crowd, submit it for consideration. A small beginning is still a beginning.

Submit a campaign