GoFundMe's 'crowdfunding for everyone' isn't really for everyone

GoFundMe’s home page states its purpose in bold font: Crowdfunding for Everyone! But “everyone” doesn’t include people undergoing certain types of litigation. Over the weekend, GoFundMe shut down two campaigns raising money for two small businesses accused of violating state anti-discrimination laws.

Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon and Arlene’s Flowers in Washington both had a history of serving gay customers. But when they declined to provide services for same-sex weddings due to their religious convictions and referred the customers elsewhere, the couples sued. Friends started the campaigns on behalf of the store owners to help with legal expenses and potential monetary damages the states might order them to pay the gay and lesbian couples.

GoFundMe’s “all-comers” policy appears authentic based on the nine campaigns featured on its home page, including several people needing money for medical expenses, a history teacher looking to update his classroom, a father desperate to hire an attorney to regain custody of his daughter, a young man taking in his teenage niece who is now a single mom, and a family whose mother was murdered, leaving her husband to raise three children alone. Individuals, groups, and organizations are invited to advertise their campaigns within more than 20 topics. The “faith” category lists a variety of causes from mission trips and adoption expenses to church planting and a denominational fight over a building.

But how many of the hundreds of thousands of people who have raised money on the site actually read the terms of agreement? Users must click a box to indicate they will abide by GoFundMe’s terms when they sign up. But reading the 3,300-word agreement isn’t easy. The small pop-up window that displays it is only about nine words wide.

GoFundMe’s guidelines ban users from using the site to raise money for a host of reasons, including pornography “of any kind,” pyramid schemes, gambling, weapons, organized violence or rebel groups, and “funding of an abortion (human or animal).” It also says users cannot raise money “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts.”

The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa and Arlene’s Flowers were found guilty of violating state anti-discrimination laws. Both cases are under appeal.

Kelsea Little, GoFundMe’s public relations manager, told me via email both campaigns were shut down because they involved “formal charges” and thus “violated GoFundMe’s Terms and Conditions.”

“Campaigns created for the benefit of individuals facing formal charges of discriminatory acts, or dealing with the resulting legal ramifications, as determined by local laws within the state in which they reside, will not be permitted to fundraise on GoFundMe,” Little wrote. “GoFundMe relies on local laws and the existence of formal charges to form its guidelines and decision-making process.”

In the eight hours the Sweet Cakes campaign remained active on Friday, well-wishers donated $109,000. Complaints from gay rights advocates brought the campaign to the attention of GoFundMe officials who shut it down, The Washington Times reported. Within 48 hours, the company also removed the campaign for Arlene’s Flowers. But the latter campaign had already been active for two months and raised more than $174,000 in donations, according to The Daily Signal.

Another GoFundMe campaign raised money earlier this month when the owners of an Indiana restaurant, Memories Pizza, came under fire for their comments about same-sex weddings. When asked by local press the hypothetical question of whether or not they’d prefer to have their family-owned business cater a gay wedding, the owners said no, citing their religious beliefs as the reason. The family received death threats. Protestors flooded online review networks with vicious comments, according to the campaign description. Officials suspended an assistant softball coach from a local high school when she posted a threat on Twitter to burn down the pizzeria, the local CBS news affiliate reported. The owners closed shop and went into hiding.

TheBlaze TV host Dana Loesch, along with several of the shows producers and writers, launched a GoFundMe campaign to help the family on April 1. They raised more than $842,000 in just two days. The campaign is still listed on GoFundMe’s website.

“In the case of ‘Memories Pizza,’ no formal charges were involved, thus the campaign was not removed,” Little told me.

Activists upset at the success of the Memories Pizza campaign started their own counter-campaign with the goal of raising $1 million to give to the Human Rights Campaign to promote LGBT rights. In 27 days, the still-active campaign has raised $923.