A $100 Donation Helps 100 Patients In Need of Support
What is Ben’s Friends Patient Communities?
Ben’s Friends Patient Communities is an international organization whose mission is to ensure that patients with rare diseases or chronic illnesses, as well as their caregivers, family and friends have a safe and supportive place to connect with others like them.
The organization was founded by Ben Munoz and Scott Orn, after Ben had a hemorrhagic stroke in 2006 at age 29 from a rare form of stroke caused by arteriovenous malformation (AVM).
Ben’s Friends runs dozens of online patient support communities that are home to over 40,000 members.
Ben’s Friends has been featured in Harvard Business Review and Forbes for our ability to make a big impact on a small budget. We make every contribution count as we changes thousands of lives daily.
Our full financials are available to the public. Our annual budget is usually less than $100k, so your donation makes a huge impact. There are absolutely no wasted dollars in our organization.
How does Ben’s Friends finance its activities?
Ben’s Friends communities are 100% free. Also, Ben’s Friends does not share or sell data with any third party.
We have a strong tradition as a volunteer-run organization, and rely on individual donations as well as corporate partners and grant funding to provide a personal and user-friendly experience for patients.
What did Ben’s Friends accomplish in the past four years?
All of our community sites underwent a redesign, making them more pleasing to the eyes and easier to navigate. The new landing pages were later created to provide new visitors helpful information about the community and encourage new memberships.
We created our Warrior Moms rare disease support site, because if you have a child or children with a rare condition, it is usually mom who is doing all the to-ing and fro-ing with hospital and doctor visits and the support needed often doesn’t need to be disease-specific. The community is also open to Warrior Dads, Warrior Aunts and others!
We have also created an online training facility for moderators and interns that makes learning about providing support to patients simple and easy. An ongoing project that we’re excited to make available to our members soon is a patient registry that we call Ben’s Connections.
We are focused on building a sustainable, mission-driven organization that provides the best peer to peer support for patients possible. Patients with rare diseases and chronic conditions know they can come to Ben’s Friends to get the information and support they need.
What are Ben’s Friends plans for 2025?
- Expand Awareness of Our Impact
Establish new partnerships with healthcare nonprofits, medical organizations, and media outlets to amplify our reach and impact.
Expand the board of directors with leaders who can help guide our mission and spread the word. - Enhance Current Communities
Simplify and refresh community website designs for a more user-friendly experience.
Grow our student internship program to bring fresh ideas and energy to our initiatives.
Recruit and train new moderators to ensure vibrant, well-supported communities. - Drive Innovation and Launch New Initiatives
Develop and maintain a Ben’s Friends rare disease patient registry to support research and advocacy.
Launch additional patient communities to serve more patients and families in need.
How can I contribute to Ben’s Friends mission?
You can help provide much-needed support to patients with rare diseases or chronic illnesses by:
- Making a donation
- Volunteering your time
- Lending your financial, legal, IT or other professional expertise, or
- Supporting us as a partner or sponsor
If you are interested in supporting Ben’s Friends, please contact us at info@bensfriends.org.
How does Ben’s Friends spend funds from donations?
Ben’s Friends operates with a minimum of staff that coordinate and train our volunteers, manage the myriad technological and content issues on our sites, keep necessary records, handle strategic planning and fund development, coordinate our platform migration, and handle daily correspondence with members, volunteers, and partners.
We make sure that the focus of all of our efforts is on the patients and caregivers that we serve and that every dollar is spent with an eye toward how we can best serve our members.
Is my donation tax deductible?
Ben’s Friends is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, and U.S. donations are tax deductible, depending on your situation. Our EIN is 46-3210142. Our full financials are available to the public. Our annual budget is usually less than $100k, so your donation makes a huge impact. There are absolutely no wasted dollars in our organization.
Are you an organization interested in partnering with us?
If you are a donor, volunteer, a socially responsible corporation, or a non-profit organization serving patients that is in need of an online community for your members, we would like to hear from you.
Please email us at info@bensfriends.org.