When Dunedin student Bailley Unahi was badly injured in a balcony collapse during a Six60 concert in Castle St earlier this month, her loved ones were quick to rally.
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But rather than just supporting each other, they quickly managed to raise more than $44,000 online to help aid her recovery from serious spinal injuries.
The money and messages of support came from friends, family and complete strangers, brought together by an online phenomenon that is rapidly on the rise - crowdfunding through the Givealittle website.
The same was true when the future of a 7ha slice of beach in Abel Tasman National Park was threatened.
People from around New Zealand were pulled together by a Givealittle campaign and raised more than $2million to buy the beach so it could be added to the national park.
According to Givealittle chief giving officer Tom Beyer, the beach campaign was a "pretty much unprecedented'' success in the website's short history.
Launched in 2008, Givealittle was acquired by the Spark Foundation, then part of Telecom, in 2012.
Since then, the sums raised nationally have risen exponentially, from $876,000 in 2012 to more than $20 million last year.
Even so, the beach campaign demonstrated the perfect example of how to run a Givealittle fundraiser, posting updates and leveraging traditional media coverage to raise its profile, Mr Beyer said.
Anyone striving to replicate its success needed to keep three key points in mind - keep the campaign clear, based around an "inspirational'' story, and use friends and family to build an initial "surge of momentum''.
Do that, and a slice of the $45.5million raised in total by Givealittle campaigns to date could be yours.
But with all this love and money flying around cyberspace, where does it leave New Zealand's 27,000 registered charities and their more traditional street appeals?
The answer is jostling for space in an increasingly crowded marketplace and at risk of being left out in the cold if they did not adapt, Methodist Mission southern director Laura Black said.
Crowdfunding ventures like Givealittle could be extremely rewarding for those that were successful, Ms Black said.
But, increasingly, the risk for others was "not being able to go viral when you have a need'', she said.
"If you don't hit that magic little sweet spot of going viral, you're still left with the needs that you have and a system that's pulled back a wee bit.
"It throws it over to the crowd. Rather than saying anybody who has this set of circumstances needs help ... it says the people who social media promotes to the front of the queue are the only ones who get help.''
In 2014, a Givealittle campaign promoted by Campbell Live highlighted the plight of a young Te Aroha couple, Tobi and Sarah Lawton, who moved into their first home, only to find it was infested with termites and had to be demolished.
Offers of help worth more than $180,000 poured in, and the couple soon found themselves in a new home.
Ms Black said the appeal was a phenomenal success for the couple, but did nothing to address the broader issue of substandard housing in other parts of New Zealand.
"I cried like a baby, but actually there are a heap of families that are living in massively substandard accommodation who are not as telegenic ... don't profile as well, or happened to put their hand up after that couple, and so they're not fresh for the news cycle stuff.
"It meets an empathy factor, but you can only do one or two of those a year before people get bored of them and change the channel,'' she said.
The same risk was true for Givealittle, which worked best for those appealing for help when their plights had instant appeal, were highlighted or promoted by the media, and given an "entertainment value''.
"It's a very American system, about people who can prove that they're deserving poor. Not everyone can do that. Not everybody can access the media, and social media, in the right way.
"Not everybody has the skills or takes as good-a-looking photos to do that.
"I worry about the people who, by necessity, will miss out.''
Mr Beyer said he had heard some "murmurs'' about Givealittle's success coming at the expense of traditional fundraising initiatives, but by and large the two appeared to be "complementary''.
About 80% of Givealittle's pages were for the benefit of individuals who were not registered charities and represented a need that had previously "fallen through the cracks'', he said.
"If there is a direct correlation between a reduction in funding opportunities for charities and an increase in our volume, that would say to me that any charities impacted by that, kind of need to look at why that is happening from their side and what they can do to address that.''
However, data showing the top-earning Givealittle campaigns also showed Otago tended to favour more established charities at the top, as well as individual causes.
The sums being collected via Givealittle also remained a "tiny drop in the bucket'' compared with the rest of the charitable sector, and were unlikely to continue their "spectacular'' growth as the site was now "mainstream'', he said.
"So the maths tells you that you can't be having that bigger impact in terms of taking away from those [traditional] giving flows,'' he said.
That was supported by Fundraising Institute of New Zealand figures, which showed New Zealand's 27,000 registered charities last year collected a total of about $18 billion, including $3 billion from voluntary donations.
The money came from a wide variety of sources, including traditional street appeals, mail drops and fundraising events, but increasingly also from cyberspace, including crowdfunding sites like Givealittle.
Institute chief executive James Austin said despite the figures, most charities - excluding larger, increasingly professional organisations - were under-resourced, struggling to adapt and losing money.
"This world is changing and you can't stop it,'' he said.
Crowdfunding's "massive surge in growth'' offered a way forward, and Givealittle, as the latest incarnation, was having "a very, very positive impact'', he said.
"It's widespread ... and it's all good news,'' Mr Austin said.
The average charity donor was aged over 60, female, white, middle class and still used chequebooks and the postal service, he said.
The beauty of Givealittle, and other crowdfunding platforms, such as FundraiseOnline or Everydayhero, was their ability to reach a new market of younger donors who could otherwise be overlooked, he said.
While it could present its own pitfalls, including the potential for misrepresentation or fraud, and did not always address wider societal issues, that was not Givealittle's role, he believed.
"Charities are there for the goodness of the heart, not always to try and change society ... we appeal to the heart. We don't appeal to the head.''
One charitable cause that has enjoyed considerable success in Dunedin, helped by Givealittle's crowdfunding power, is Lazarus.
The long-haired ginger cat is recovering well from a broken jaw, fractured tibia and damaged pelvis after being hit by a car in South Rd, Caversham, last month.
Such were his injuries, and with resources stretched, SPCA Otago opted to launch a Givealittle campaign to raise the $2000 needed to cover the cost of surgery, SPCA Otago business development manager Kirsty Thomson said.
But it was only one cause among many clamouring for attention across Otago, ranging from the practical to the heartrending.
The Broad Bay Boat Club wants funds to invest in a new safety boat and the parents of one young boy, Wren Monks, hope to raise $4000 to buy their son - a promising musician - a new set of bagpipes.
And, at the other end of the scale, a community appeal to support Middlemarch woman Leeann Barnes and her two sons, who lost their home in a fire, is continuing, as is Kent Te Ahuru's appeal for money to help his infant daughter's second fight against cancer.
Cancer Society Dunedin was one charity which saw Givealittle's influence "very positively'', marketing and communications manager Mark Hamer said.
It was only one channel among many - traditional and online - used to engage the community in fundraising, "but right across the board we are seeing that they [crowdfunding sites] are getting more traction''.
"Givealittle is an important part of that mix ... It can really snowball in terms of the network of people who are actually being exposed to these messages.''
But while there was no evidence support for events like the Daffodil Day street appeal were being cannibalised by Givealittle's success, "intuitively, you'd say it probably does'', he said.
"People only have so much money to give ... people are obviously having to make a decision around ‘I've given once and I really can't afford to give again'.
"But we're not seeing that as very pronounced.''
However, instead of cannibalising funds that would otherwise have been collected through more traditional means, online crowdfunding reached, and helped, a new audience, she believed.
The agency regularly helped vulnerable families at Christmas, including teenagers, who could be difficult to buy gifts for, she said.
Last December, a supporter of Presbyterian Support Otago started a Givealittle page and quickly raised more than $1000 to buy 100 movie tickets as gifts for troubled teens, she said.
It also meant the campaign could be shared, and spread, without marketing costs for the organisation, she said.
"There is clearly a growing response via social media to particular causes that your Givealittle model seems to be effective in. There's no real reason why agencies like ours can't actually tap into that as well.''
The emphasis was still on the need to develop a relationship with donors, to ensure ongoing support, but Givealittle tapped into a new market, she said.
"I think it's really important to actually tap into the new ways of doing things, so that you keep connected to the next generation of donors.''
