This project came out of three things, and it felt worth writing them down properly rather than leaving them scattered across an About page.
1. Algorithms count people out
A fundraising page with zero donations tends to stay that way. Platforms surface what's already popular; being first is the hardest part, and it has nothing to do with how much someone deserves help.
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, the hard way
There's an old This American Life story (Episode 286, later re-aired as Episode 588, in a segment called "The Spy Who Loved Everyone") about a comedy group called Improv Everywhere. In 2004, they learned that a small unknown band from Vermont, Ghosts of Pasha, was about to play their first-ever New York show to what would likely be an almost empty room. So about three dozen volunteers learned the band's songs, made merchandise, and showed up acting like devoted, longtime superfans.
The intention was purely generous — give a band one incredible night — and for a while it worked. But once the band realized the crowd wasn't real, it left them unsettled rather than grateful. Manufactured encouragement, even offered with real love, can curdle once the truth comes out.
Here's the part that matters most to us: it didn't end there. Years later, Ghosts of Pasha 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.
What we took from that
We wanted the generous impulse — give someone a boost, make them feel seen — without the con. No manufactured crowd, no fake momentum, no paid trick standing in for real support. Boost Board just puts a real campaign in front of real people and lets them decide for themselves whether to help. Whatever happens next is genuine, even if it's smaller than a room full of fake superfans.
Read more on our About page, or hear the original story at thisamericanlife.org.