But a current campaign to save the life of a 4-year-old boy has taken off in a big way, hoping to capitalize on crowdsourcing and social media to help him beat the odds.
And according to a note on the group's website, there's a chance that it's already worked.
Devan Tatlow, whose family lives in Washington, D.C., has a rare form of leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Complicating that is his mixed south Indian-northern European ancestry - which supporters say gives him a 1-in-200,000 chance of finding a match.
Doctors say they have less than 12 weeks.
Instead of trying to beat those odds the normal way, his family and their friends went online and turned their quest viral.
Rob Kenny, Devan's godfather, said hundreds of people have taken active roles drumming up support in what has become a global effort. While Devan lives in Washington, Kenny is in the United Kingdom, the Facebook campaign is being run out of Hong Kong and active recruitment drives are happening in Mexico, Singapore and other places.
Their message has been tweeted by the thousands on Twitter, and probably even more people have mentioned Devan's cause in their Facebook statuses.
Their efforts have been promoted throughout the online community through posts on the Huffington Post, tech blog Gizmodo and other sites.
The group is urging people to register at Be The Match, in hopes they'll be a match for Devan or someone else.
On Tuesday came some good news: there's a chance their efforts have paid off.
A message on the site's homepage said "a potential cord blood match" for Devan has been located. The group is awaiting confirmation that it truly is a match.
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