Sink or Swim Philly: Founder learns social media to bring financial relief to ill, under-insured

 Marion Leary is a critical care nurse and Penn researcher who wanted to do more to help sick patients who were struggling financially, even though that’s the one area in which she didn’t have the tools to help them.

Leary realized she could harness the web to reach donors who might be willing to help under or un-insured patients, but she had no idea how to create a website or use social media.

So she decided to learn.

Leary launched Sink or Swim Philadelphia in October 2011, a site that features one local Philadelphian each month who is trying to get healthy and find a way out of crushing medical debt. While a patient is featured on the site, donors can support that person reach their stated monetary goal.

Visit the site here.

“I finally decided that I could no longer sit back and watch as people struggled with illness while stressing about their medical bills, but I had no budget and I was one person with an idea.”

Leary, 34, told Technically Philly she’d had the general idea for SOS Philly for quite a few years. She was finally inspired to act on it after seeing film director Michael Moore on Oprah talking about his documentary on the health care industry, SICKO.

“He said something to the effect of ‘We are either going to swim together or sink alone.’ And I thought, that’s it, Sink or Swim, the idea of having our neighbors help people in their community who need it most, during their most difficult and trying times,” said Leary.

Inspired to take action, Leary still had to figure out how to structure her fundraising effort. She had been following Kiva.org at the time, a microlending site for small businesses in the developing world, and realized the Kiva model would translate well to her mission.

With no web development skills and no budget, Leary decided to use the Kiva model, but launch the site on Facebook, an already existing platform that would allow her to reach her family, friends and their families and friends.

“One of my current Board Members suggested I start Sink or Swim Philadelphia on Facebook instead of waiting to find the funds for a website,” said Leary. “This was the absolute right idea and has taken Sink or Swim Philadelphia to a place I don’t think we could have gone if we had just started out as a website first.”

Throughout the process, Leary has set out to learn as much as she could about social media, attending forums and free lectures as well as reaching out to social media experts for guidance on how to optimize social networking for fundraising. Using her new skills, she created a social media volunteer group and recruited a social marketing person to her Board of Directors, which also includes Karen Cristini Mcrory-Negrin, the wife of City Managing Director Rich Negrin.

“Like people say about having a kid, there is never a right time and you just have to do it – that is exactly how it went with Sink or Swim Philadelphia. I had to stop thinking of all the obstacles and just move forward and I am so glad I did,” said Leary. “It has been a true learning process each and every day, but one that is a necessity in this day and age.”

The site is now featuring its fifth patient of the month, a local woman diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer.

“She is the exact reason I wanted to start SOS,” said Leary. “She has triple negative breast cancer, is going through chemo, but still has to work almost full time because she is the primary insurance provider for her family.”

Leary, who is originally from Northeast Philly (Burholme) and now lives in Northern Liberties, says she is planning to start using LinkedIn and Google+ to reach out to even more of the Philadelphia community.

“Social networking has become an essential part of our community – the number of people you can reach, in a very small amount of time, is what makes SOS Philly so successful,” Leary said.

As SOS Philadelphia develops, the local community could learn important lessons about how microlending and social media can be used to raise up struggling neighbors.