A senior Los Angeles official took aim at crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, claiming the site charges exorbitant fees for users who want to support those affected by the wildfire crisis.
Kathryn Barger, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, asserted at a news conference over the weekend that she had to pay $95 in tips or fees while she tried to give $500 to a family rendered homeless by the fires, according to a Monday report by the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
“I was shocked to find out that to give $500, they were going to charge me $95,” Barger said.
The official commented that the company does deserve to “be able to pay for their overhead,” but remarked that “at the same time, we are in a crisis.”
She asked GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan to “cut the cost in order to ensure that the money goes directly to the family.”
The news outlet concluded that GoFundMe, which is based in Redwood City, California, has raked in $400,000 in tips and fees from just a single fundraiser related to the fires, and there are hundreds of fundraisers on the site at the moment.
The platform adds a suggested 14 percent “tip” for GoFundMe on its donation page, but consumers can alter the online form if they want to tip a lower amount — or nothing at all.
GoFundMe said in a statement to the Daily Mail that the comments from Barger were not accurate, noting that she appeared to include the optional suggested tip.
“The only fee on GoFundMe is a standard transaction fee of 2.9 percent + $0.30 per donation, which helps us pay our payment processors and safely deliver funds,” a spokesperson said.
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“GoFundMe is primarily powered by voluntary tips and relies on these completely optional contributions from donors,” the spokesperson added.
Perhaps there are a few ways in which leaders at GoFundMe could be more transparent and assist with fundraisers for their own home state.
They could temporarily waive the tip system, or make more clear that the tips are optional, at least during crisis situations like the wildfires.
But in many cases, GoFundMe accounts are created for crises, even if they are not crises that happen to an entire city all at once. For someone who is raising money for cancer treatment or a legal defense fund, every dollar counts.
That is true regardless of political preference or ideology, but GoFundMe has a poor history of respecting that distinction as well.
Look no further than GoFundMe ripping $9 million away from the Canadian Freedom Convoy, a movement of truckers that protested lockdowns and mandates in 2022.
Less than two years earlier, Candace Owens tried to raise funds for a restaurant owner in Alabama who had expressed a countercultural opinion about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, but GoFundMe pulled the plug after the campaign raised over $200,000. The organization declared the cause to be “intolerant.”
GoFundMe executives need to make sure that they are cleared of any appearance of wrongdoing. They should simply do their jobs by allowing funds to reach their desired endpoint, without meddling in the politics of the situation or even skimming a bit too much off the top.
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