A Christian Crowdfunding Site Has a White-Power Problem
GiveSendGo bills itself as the Christian alternative to GoFundMe — a platform committed to sharing “the Hope of Jesus through crowdfunding.” In addition to typical crowdfunding campaigns for medical bills and memorial funds, the site has a right-wing political edge. GiveSendGo is the preferred platform of alleged co-conspirators in Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election: Attorneys Jeffrey Clark, Jenna Ellis, and John Eastman all have legal-defense fundraisers on the site.
But the GiveSendGo platform is also a hit with white-supremacists and neo-Nazis. Rolling Stone has discovered nearly a dozen active, white-supremacist fundraisers on GiveSendGo. Beneficiaries of these campaigns include some of the nation’s most notorious neo-Nazis, among them leaders of groups like the Goyim Defense League, NSC-131 and Blood Tribe. One campaign seeks to counter the “hegemony” of those denigrated as “a hostile alien people, Jews.”
These campaigns are hiding in plain sight. And the crowds they attract are even more brazen in their hate. Donors have adopted usernames that are racial slurs — including the n-word — or that spoof the names of Nazi leaders like Hitler and Himmler. Others leave coded messages of hate like “HH” (“Heil Hitler”) and “88” (the 8s correspond to the eighth letter of alphabet — H), or references to the “14 words”, a bleak white-supremacist motto about securing a “future for white children.” Others mash these up with the telegraphic combo, “1488.”
GiveSendGo did not respond to questions from Rolling Stone about these campaigns — which have raised, collectively, tens of thousands of dollars. The platform’s terms of service ostensibly prohibit crowdfunding to “promote hate, violence, [and] racial intolerance.” But in practice GiveSendGo has notoriously hands-off moderation. This has helped it emerge as “a singularly important part of the extremist fundraising ecosystem,” according to a report published earlier this year by the ADL’s Center on Extremism.
Consider the “Aryan Archive Fundraising Campaign,” which describes itself as a project of the “White Rights Movement” that is “tirelessly” dedicated to exposing the “three most important facts of our time.” These refer to a baseless, antisemitic, and racist conspiracy theory — “namely, that White Genocide is happening; Jews are behind it; and we have, not only a right, but an obligation to resist it.” The campaign seeks to build a cultural library that will “become the central knowledge store of the Aryan people.” It has raised more than $7,500.
Another hardcore white supremacist has decorated his GiveSendGo landing page with a giant variant of a Sonnenrad — or “Black Sun” image used in Hitler’s Germany and favored by contemporary fascists — made up of SS lightning bolts. The fundraiser, by Christopher Pohlhaus, supports his “Blood Tribe,” a neo-Nazi separatist movement whose members have confronted LGBTQ events waving Swastika flags. Pohlhaus — who believes that “America was on the side of evil during WW2” — is now building a compound in Maine. Shoutouts by donors include the Nazi slogan “blood and soil” as well as comments like: “Build the ethnostate!” and the Hitler salute “ \o” in text-emoji form. It has raised $6,000.
GiveSendGo is also hosting fundraisers by prominent members of the Goyim Defense League, infamous for dropping wildly antisemitic hate-fliers in suburban neighborhoods. The group’s founder is Jon Minadeo, who has touted himself as “AMERICAS #1 ANTI SEMITE!” One of his fundraisers leads with white-genocide nonsense — “We as Europeans are being replaced in America” — and seeks donations for a white-nationalist gathering his home state of Florida. Supporters have left messages like: “For our future generations”; “o/“; and “Unite the Whites.” The campaign has raised $3,500.
In addition, Minadeo has a separate fundraiser to buy a compound for GDL: “We want to start building a community of like minded people so that we can grow our own food, teach our own children good common sense values and protect our land from Marxist ideology.” (A donor suggests calling it the “Caucasian cottage.”)
Another GDL member based in Georgia, Philip Jacobs, has a GiveSendGo campaign where the banner image is a 1488 flag, with the full “14 words” slogan. It touts the efforts of “Pro-White Activists” in “educating the state of Georgia about the jewish mafia that has high jacked [sic] this country.” It asks for support for hate-flyering activities. (A relatively new fund, it has pulled in $700.)
GiveSendGo uses the tagline “Shine Brightly.” And its Christian philosophy is summarized in its mission statement: “Raise money to share hope. Money is temporary. Jesus is eternal. Give both and watch the world be changed.” But the dark reality of the site often has little to do with this Jesus-is-Love branding.
That’s in part because GiveSendGo has also positioned itself as a bastion from cancel culture. A statement on the website describes the platform being “thrust into the political spotlight” in 2020 “for allowing a campaign that mainstream media… was censoring.” (This appears to refer to a legal defense fund for Kyle Rittenhouse, the young Kenosha shooter who was later found not-guilty of criminal charges.) After prayerful consideration, the statement describes, the site’s leadership concluded that “GiveSendGo was created for such a time as this.” It says it has chosen “not to take one side or another politically” but to “stand for freedom” as well as Jesus.
But is white supremacy just another political “side”? Do neo-Nazis then have GiveSendGo’s tacit blessing? It would be hard for the company to feign ignorance of crowdfunding by haters. Co-founder Heather Wilson’s testified to the Canadian parliament in March 2022 that GiveSendGo keeps close tabs on who uses the platform. “We review every single campaign and recipient who comes on our site,” she said.
And an earlier fundraising campaign by Pohlhaus, the Maine-based neo Nazi, caught the attention of an extremism analyst in 2022. The analyst made repeated attempts to alert the platform about the content he believed violated GiveSendGo’s terms of service. But, as later detailed in an article by Vice, the page remained active. For his part, Pohlhaus responded to the article by linking to his GiveSendGo page from his Telegram account, touting again the fundraiser that “lefties and Vice News are so worried about.”
The report by ADL’s Center on Extremism calls out GiveSendGo’s “tolerance towards violent extremism on their platform” — citing crowdfunding on the platform for members of the Proud Boys, among other notorious street brawlers. Co-founder Jacob Wells told the same Canadian parliamentary hearing that GiveSendGo would not ban the KKK from the platform if what the Klan were fundraising for was legal: “We believe, completely to the core of our being,” he added, “that the danger of the suppression of speech is much more dangerous than the speech itself.” (Neither Wilson nor Wells responded to interview requests.)
Back on GiveSendGo, a notorious white nationalist named Mike Weaver is raising funds for a legal fight with what he blasts as the “JEWdicial system.” The campaign has garnered more than $15,000, including from a donor “Adolph Hickler.” A leader of the Tennessee Active Club, a white nationalist fight club, introduces himself on his legal-defense fundraiser as “a pro-White activist.” A donor, “White Unity,” left Nazi lightning bolts “⚡️⚡️” in addition to $10.
And the head of the thuggish New England neo-Nazi group, NSC-131, is holding a pair of fundraisers for a deceased member who went by the handle “PurePower88.” One donor wrote: “I really wish you were here right now and we can all be smashing every Drag Queen Story Hour in New England.” The campaigns have raised more than $10,000.
Mathew Gebert is a former State Department official who reportedly got radicalized in to white nationalism and attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. (He was suspended from his government post after being outed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.) Gebert’s GiveSendGo is raising funds for his “family-friendly” podcast for “our people” called “Full Haus.” The art for the current episode of the podcast features a Sonnenrad, and the podcast website reads: “We are unapologetically pro-white and hostile to the forces” who push “atrocities,” including “circumcision” and trying to “make whites a minority in every country on earth.” One GiveSendGo donor writes: “THIS TIME THE WORLD HH o/ o/ o/”. The campaign has raised more than $6,500.
GiveSendGo is international, and has become a favorite of Australian neo Nazis as well. Thomas Sewell, leader of European Australia Movement, has raised about $15,000 for a legal defense fund, including from a donor who calls themselves “Heinrich Himmler,” and another who wrote “Seig Heil!”
Another Australian campaign is meant to aid white nationalist Blair Cotrell in recovery from a popped pectoral muscle. Cotrell’s gym injury was suffered at what the GiveSendGo page describes as a “White Power Lifting Event.”
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