Pastors and preachers use the crowdfunding platform. So do “patriots,” “political prisoners” and members of the Proud Boys, a violent group that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Donors pay toward people’s medical bills, funeral expenses or a grandmother’s birthday celebration. And almost 60,000 donors have given nearly $3 million for the legal defense of Daniel Penny, the Marine who killed a troubled homeless man on a New York City subway in May.
Jacob Wells
Welcome to GiveSendGo, the crowdfunding site that describes itself as both “The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site” and “The Leader in Freedom Fundraising.”
The Washington Post called it “a refuge of sorts for outcasts and extremists.”
The Anti-Defamation League called it “a singularly important platform of the extremist fundraising ecosystem.”
Jacob Wells, an evangelical Christian and Navy veteran who once studied for the ministry, launched the platform with two sisters in 2015 as “a place for Christians” and alternative to the web-based fundraising site GoFundMe.
In 2022, GiveSendGo hosted a quarter million campaigns that raised $100 million.
In 2022, GiveSendGo hosted a quarter million campaigns that raised $100 million. About 20% of campaigns attract no donors, while campaigns for politically charged issues raise millions. The site doesn’t charge a commission but generated between $4 million and $5 million in revenue, much of that from donations, up from about $1 million in 2021.
Freedom reigns, extremists flourish
Wells says GiveSendGo reflects his total commitment to freedom — both the spiritual freedom Christ offers and the American rights won by military veterans’ blood. He refuses to “control the narrative” because he prefers “the friction of ideas, not the removal of ideas.”
In practice, this means GiveSendGo has hosted thousands of controversial campaigns that were blocked by other crowdfunding platforms. Some campaigns seem to violate its guidelines on “prohibited activities/prohibited campaigns,” including funding for:
- Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed George Floyd
- Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen who shot and killed two men in a riot following Floyd’s death and became a right-wing hero
- Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy
- Protesters involved in the racist and antisemitic 2017 march in Charlottesville
- “Patriots” arrested in the January 6 Capitol attack.
Wells told one interviewer the site would host campaigns for the Ku Klux Klan if they were legal.
The man behind Inglorious Patriots campaign explained why he sought out GiveSendGo: “We tell the truth and blow up the spot on the deep-state. We fight child trafficking and have been banned 33 times from YouTube, which is run by a bunch of Satan-worshipping baby eaters.”
Inglorious Patriots has raised $261 toward its $10,000 goal.
GoFundMe cited violence and illegal activity when it canceled a campaign for the anti-vaccine trucker convoy that snarled Ottawa, Canada, and some U.S.-Canada border crossings. But GiveSendGo hosted the campaign, which quickly became GiveSendGo’s “largest campaign ever,” raising $10 million, 10% of the platform’s campaign total for 2022.
Platforming extremism and antisemitism
In a January report, the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism called GiveSendGo “a singularly important platform of the extremist fundraising ecosystem.” ADL said the Christian platform not only raises funds for violent, destructive groups but also helps them find a wider audience for their propaganda.
ADL tracked extremist and hateful campaigns on 10 crowdfunding sites and found GiveSendGo led the pack: “Of the 324 campaigns tracked by the Center on Extremism, 230 were hosted on GiveSendGo. … It is particularly favored by extremists for its stance against what it calls ‘censorship.’”
ADL said campaigns hosted on GiveSendGo involved hateful rhetoric, antisemitism, white supremacy, QAnon conspiracies and anti-LGBTQ extremism. “Extremists and conspiracy theorists have flocked to GiveSendGo because of its lax moderation practice,” ADL said.
ADL called on the 10 platforms to embrace robust anti-hate and anti-extremism policies and asked payment processers to reevaluate supporting such platforms.
In reply, GiveSendGo’s Wells said, “People who use this type of terminology about us are the actual extremists.”
Christian connections
Wells says GiveSendGo promotes the “hope of Jesus” through the prayerful interaction with those who set up campaigns — they recently prayed with a Buddhist — and the Bible verses it uses in its correspondence.
“We see God work in amazing ways with our prayer team,” Wells said, claiming he has been “humbled” and “blown away” by the site’s success. “It’s like what we see in the book of Acts, where believers come together to give to needs where there were needs, and sharing the hope of Jesus,” he said.
One important difference: The Apostle Paul never fundraised for insurrectionists.
Fueling partisanship division
After GoFundMe canceled a campaign for Kyle Rittenhouse, Wells welcomed him, exposing the platform to its first real media attention and public condemnation. Wells doubled down with a press release and said, “We will not be bullied into abandoning our values.”
“Unbeknownst to us, we had stepped onto a battlefield and had to take a stand,” the firm’s website says. “After much prayer, discussion and counsel, a decision was made. GiveSendGo was created for such a time as this.”
When a hack exposed the identity of Rittenhouse donors, including a police officer who was fired, GiveSendGo hosted a $47,000 campaign for him, too. PayPal, Apple Pay and Discover Card blocked people from GiveSendGo. Wells recorded a video showing him cutting up a Discover Card and calling the bans “horrendous.”
GiveSendGo also hosts the “Lindell Legal Offense Fund” for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, a major source of election misinformation.
“All Americans are concerned about election integrity,” the fundraising site says. “Mike Lindell is giving them an opportunity to correct flaws in the system.”
Although Lindell has a reported net worth of $300 million, donors on GiveSendGo have given $10,909 toward his goal of $50,000.