Skip to main content

Search results

90% of our funding comes from individual donors. Learn how you can support MSF’s lifesaving care with a gift.

Scroll down for content
© Spencer Schneider

Streamers Without Borders

Livestream to save lives.

Read More

Type of fundraisers

Special occasions

Make your milestones even more special by dedicating your birthday, wedding, or any celebration to MSF's lifesaving work around the world.

Athletic events

Whether you're a speed walker or a triathlete, go the extra mile by supporting MSF while participating in your favorite athletic event.

Corporate support

Engage your colleagues or employees by holding a fundraiser at your place of work.

Community fundraisers

Activate your community to support our mission by holding your own fundraiser, such as silent auctions, concerts, or bake sales.

Play video games and stream online

Team up with MSF and inspire your viewers to raise awareness and funds for our emergency medical work.

Tribute fundraisers

Continue the legacy of a loved one and their desire to support MSF's work across the world.

Fundraising Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Fundraising FAQs

Collecting and submitting donations

For the security of the donations, we strongly urge you not to mail in cash donations. For any cash donation you receive, please convert the cash to a cashier's check or a money order and mail it with a completed donation form. Please be sure to include the donor's personal information on the donation form so that an accurate receipt can be generated for tax purposes. Please do not deposit the cash into your own account and write a check for that amount; the IRS regards this as income and in addition, if a check is written from your account, your donor won’t receive a tax receipt. It isn't possible to have a check written from your personal account credited to another donor. However, if you have several cash donations from different donors and want to convert them to one check, you can accompany one cashier's check with multiple donation forms to indicate the amount that each donor contributed. Each donor will receive a tax receipt for the amount specified on their donation form.

Attn: Fundraising Events
Doctors Without Borders USA
P.O. Box 5030
Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030

Please make sure to include a note with your fundraising campaign name and contact info.  

Please make all checks payable to: Doctors Without Borders.

If a donor makes the check out to you, simply endorse the check with your signature and "Payable to Doctors Without Borders" and submit it with the donation form. Please note that the account holder on the check will receive the tax receipt from Doctors Without Borders.

The only way we know that a mail-in contribution was made on your behalf is if the donor has placed your name on the memo line of their check, or attached the donation form to their check. Please ask them to clearly mark on the donation form that the donations is in support of your fundraising page.

We do not recommend this method. If you collect all of the donations and deposit them into your account so that you can write one check, two things will happen:

  1. Since the check is from your account, your donors will not receive a tax receipt from Doctors Without Borders.
  2. The IRS will consider that deposit income in your account and you could be taxed on the amount.

Livestream fundraising

Twitch, YouTube, Mixer, or Facebook all offer live-streaming services.

Each of these platforms have straightforward guides on how to get started. If you’re new to streaming, try Twitch Studio, their streaming program which contains very simplistic and basic options for streaming. If you wish to have more options and features with your streaming program, visit other advanced programs such as Streamlabs.

You must be 13 years old to stream on Twitch.

You can set up a campaign on our fundraising platforms: DonorDrive or Tiltify! These platforms enable you to receive and track donations during your fundraising event, and encourage viewers to participate with extra incentives and challenges! Each has different features and options for use, so we encourage you to visit both to get a better understanding of which platform you prefer!

To learn how to setup your fundraiser on Tiltify or DonorDrive, visit our setup guides!

Once you start a new streaming campaign, you can include a streaming service ID that will embed your stream in your fundraising campaign. Let your family and friends know that you’ll be playing for a great cause and encourage them to support you!

PayPal donations can be made directly through your fundraising page, and all the funds will go straight to Doctors Without Borders. Donations are tax-deductible.

MSF's Video Game Content Guidelines

When supporting Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), please remember you are representing and affiliating yourself with a global medical humanitarian organization. Therefore, we kindly ask you to follow a few simple rules:

If you have any questions about whether or not a specific game or content is appropriate, please reach out to streaming@newyork.msf.org for more information. 

Any violation will result in the removal of affiliation with MSF. We appreciate your adherence to these guidelines.

  • MSF requires that all fundraisers and streams related to video games do not dilute or harm MSF’s brand and reputation. We ask that you take into consideration our principles as a humanitarian aid organization.
  • MSF will not consider fundraising activities from video games rated “Adults Only” by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).
  • Campaigns which feature media other than games will be evaluated on similar criteria.
  • Streams for MSF are prohibited from including:
    • Content that is racist, misogynistic, discriminatory, or explicitly sexual
    • The display or use of illegal substances or paraphernalia
    • The intoxication of streamers during the stream

If you have any questions about whether or not a specific game or content is appropriate, please reach out to streaming@newyork.msf.org for more information.

Any violation will result in the removal of affiliation with MSF. We appreciate your adherence to these guidelines. 

First and foremost: Show off those skills and have fun! You’re playing a game you love all while helping support vital medical care for people caught in crisis. That’s a win.

If you want, you can talk about your strategy to win the game or why you support Doctors Without Borders. Pretty much anything goes, except...

We’re pretty sure you don’t need a primer on what not to do, but just to make sure we’re all on the same page: While you’re streaming, please avoid any profanity as well as any sexually explicit, bigoted, or misogynistic language or behavior.

And, finally, if you’re intoxicated or engaging in any illegal activities, that’s probably not a good time to stream, either. Streaming while engaging in any of the above will result in your fundraiser being shut down.

You just need to convert the cash to a check or money order, payable to Doctors Without Borders.

Keep in mind that if you write a personal check for cash that was given to you, we can only give the tax receipt to you.

Attn: Fundraising Events
Doctors Without Borders USA
P.O. Box 5030
Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030

Please make sure to include a note with your fundraising campaign name & contact info.

No problem. Send us an email at streaming@newyork.msf.org and we’ll do everything we can to get you the answers you need.

Planning your fundraiser

Yes. All press releases, pitch letters, printed, or electronic advertisements must be submitted to the Doctors Without Borders staff for review and approval before they are made public. Please submit them to fundraisers@newyork.msf.org.

Doctors Without Borders is not able to reimburse your fundraising expenses. To keep your expenses down, consider asking local businesses to sponsor your event or provide in-kind donations. Please be aware of the Doctors Without Borders corporate gift acceptance policy.

Regulations for raffles and auctions differ from state to state. Before organizing one, please check with your State Attorney General’s Office for your state’s regulations.

Matching gifts

Matching gifts are a benefit that many companies provide, through which they match all or part of their employees' charitable donations. This means your company will make a donation to the cause as a direct result of your donation. Contact your human resources department to see if your company has a program and what it involves.

Please be aware that Doctors Without Borders has a corporate gift acceptance policy.

Doctors Without Borders recognizes the potential conflict between receiving corporate donations and fulfilling our humanitarian mandate. In the interest of protecting the independence of our operations, which directly affects the well-being of our patients, we feel it necessary to take this step to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

To ensure that the event organizer you are sponsoring will be credited when the gift is matched, please write his or her name and event name in the upper right hand corner of the matching gift form. If your company's matching gift form is completed online and a "notes" field is provided, please include the event organizer’s name and the name of the event.

Please attach a copy of your donation receipt (if available) to the matching gift form.

Once you have made a copy of the matching gift form to retain for your own records, you should mail the original form to:

Doctors Without Borders
Attn: Fundraising Events
40 Rector Street, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10006

COVID-19

Our teams are responding to the coronavirus emergency on multiple fronts—caring for patients, offering health education and mental health support, and providing training for vital infection control measures in health facilities around the world.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is working with local authorities in many of the countries where we have medical projects to help prepare for the impact of COVID-19. A key priority is to keep our regular medical programs running for the tens of thousands of patients and extremely vulnerable communities we help support. This pandemic threatens the lives of people around the world and presents even greater risks in countries with weak or fragile health systems.