Bill, It's a fantasy for many people. Crowd funding means having the access and the ability to go online and make a pitch that generates sympathy. For kids, that sometimes works. It does not work for a 75 year-old woman living in a trailer with a high school education, that worked all her life and whose family hardly ever sees her.
I've read some of these options like crow funding, a church that will step up, garage sales, sell a kidney, office fund raisers, pizza parties, etc. The costs are too high.