GiveSendGo vs GoFundMe

Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Afew times over the past several years I have had to reach out for financial help. Some of those times in the past I used GoFundMe. But after they showed their ugly side—their w0ke side—a few times over the past couple of years by denying donated funds to people they didn’t agree with politically, I decided I wouldn’t be helping them stay in business anymore.

So I started checking out alternatives. It is hard finding a fund-raising site everyone can agree with.

I saw GiveSendGo recommended by several people, so I checked them out. They are a Christian fund-raising site, and I find myself completely unable to “believe in” anything. Still, I don’t fault those who do—I sometimes wish I could, too.

I decided to do a little test. I would start campaigns on both GoFundMe and GiveSendGo, hinting strongly that the funds raised would be used to buy a firearm that I wanted.

Neither campaign got deleted, but neither campaign raised even one dollar. Some people wrote and said they refused to donate through GoFundMe for the same reasons I no longer wanted to use them. I sent those people the GiveSendGo link, but none of them donated there, either. Was it the religious slant, or just that they never intended to donate and GoFundMe gave them a reason not to? I don’t know since no one ever replied about the alternative I offered.

I realize the failure of the fund-raiser was mostly my fault. It wasn’t an emergency; not even a need. Just a want. As such, I didn’t promote the campaigns like I would have otherwise. It felt embarrassing to do so.

I still wonder whether, had any money been donated, GoFundMe would have refused to transfer the donations to me. It might not have been a big enough amount to get on their radar. So, I dropped the issue after a couple of weeks. As things would happen, it wasn’t long until I found myself actually needing some money. I gave GiveSendGo another shot. Not to check their bias this time, but just to see how they’d work as a fund-raiser.

Their site worked pretty well.

I still haven’t quite reached my goal, but I’m close.

We could have another conversation about my feelings on the matter of not enough supporters to make these occasional fund-raisers unnecessary. It wouldn’t take that many monthly supporters to make ends meet. It is what it is. I’m not the only one facing this problem.

Still, if you want an alternative to GoFundMe, and don’t mind the religious slant, GiveSendGo works just as well in my experience as GoFundMe. They may even be more tolerant—although I didn’t try to test them on that.

PS—My blog address has changed and it seems most of my readers haven’t found me yet. It is now at KentForLiberty.com