Record sum raised on GoFundMe for Orlando shooting victims
Howard Lake | 17 June 2016 | News
An appeal set up on crowdfunding site GoFundMe to help the victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, USA, has raised over $4m in two days. This is the largest amount raised for a campaign on the site to date.
The Equality Florida’s Pulse Victim Fund was set up after 49 people were murdered on 11 June in a gay nightclub in the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in US history. According to Wikipedia, it was also “the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in US history, and also the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks in 2001”.
Equality Florida is the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organisation.
GoFundMe contributed $100,000 towards this campaign, effectively waiving their transaction fees.
The campaign’s original target was $100,000, which has since been raised to $5m, and now $7m.
It raised $2.9m in just one day, from 67,276 people. By the end of the second day that had reached $4,078,020 from 88,505 people. Currently the total stands at $5, 092,272 from 105,098 people.
67,276 donors responded to the appeal within 24 hours
By day four over $5m had been donated.
More has been raised for the victims and their families on GoFundMe and other sites, including:
- $57,368 for the family of Brenda Marquez McCool, mother of 11 children
- $27,865 for Leonel Melendez, who survived but is in a coma
- $32,577 for the family of Enrique Rios
Since the California-based site was launched in May 2010, over $2 billion has been raised on GoFundMe to benefit individuals. It deducts 5% of the value of donations as a fee.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.