Charlie Kirk’s supporters trounce opponents in crowdfunding battle

The first major crowdfunding campaign after Charlie Kirk’s assassination was launched within hours to support his family.

Others quickly joined: some to support his family, others to continue his work or to memorialize their fallen hero.

Nearly 100,000 donations have poured into the campaigns. By Monday, a day after Kirk was laid to rest, roughly $10 million had been raised on two major crowdfunding platforms, GiveSendGo and GoFundMe.

Kirk’s detractors also have been active.

A wave of firings of people who mocked or otherwise denigrated Kirk’s death, or life, sent people rushing to crowdsourcing platforms to seek money to fight their legal battles or to pay bills until they found other paychecks.

Among them is Kaylee Rollo, who set up a campaign for herself and her sibling Kerri after they were identified in a caught-on-tape moment showing someone smashing a Kirk memorial on the steps of the courthouse in Bentonville, Arkansas. Both now face vandalism charges.

“My sibling and I were arrested for this protest. We have been threatened, doxxed, harassed and fired. Please consider donating for legal counsel and court fees,” Kaylee Rollo wrote.

Her campaign, which she called the “Fight Against F4scism,” had raised nearly $6,000 from 183 donations.

Donors have ponied up nearly $18,000 for Gerald Bourguet, who was fired from his PHNX Sports job covering the Phoenix Suns basketball team after calling Kirk an “evil man” and among the “bigots spreading genocidal propaganda.”

Even more successful was Kimberly Hunt, who had raised more than $80,000 from 2,600 donations as of Monday.

The Arizona woman labeled her campaign “doxxed, fired but not silenced.” In online posts, she said her employer let her go because of a backlash over her criticism of Kirk. She asked for money “to help me stay afloat while I get back on my feet.”

Less successful was Briana Trace, who said she was fired for her “beliefs on the Charlie Kirk assassination.” She set a $3,000 fundraising goal and said she was a single mother who needed money to provide for her two children, but five days in, she didn’t have any donations.

Jeremy Snyder, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada who studies crowdfunding campaigns, said crowdfunding donations serve as a form of political expression for some people, though he cautioned against judging relative support for the two sides based on the totals raised.

He said the reach of the people organizing a campaign can affect exposure, and Kirk’s supporters include big names.

Conservative media figure Tucker Carlson and his nicotine pouch company Alp donated $1 million to kick off one of the GiveSendGo campaigns. As of Monday, it had collected more than $5.4 million from more than 46,000 donations.

Turning Point USA’s official fundraiser for the Kirk family has topped $2.3 million in donations. The Liberty Memes Foundation was first out of the block just after Kirk’s death was confirmed and was nearing the $1 million mark Monday afternoon.

“Rest easy, Charlie, and know you have changed the world,” wrote one donor who gave $100 to that campaign.

In his research, Mr. Snyder examined legal crowdfunding campaigns and found that those touching on politically charged issues significantly outperformed others.

“There is research that tapping into people’s emotions can support crowdfunding success, including encouraging people to give as an expression of these emotions or a political viewpoint. Media coverage helps too, which would favor campaigns linked to current events. Similarly, these campaigns may be more likely to be shared online as a form of political expression,” he said.

Those same factors also appear to be at play in the Kirk-related campaigns.

GoFundMe said it was working to verify all the Kirk-related campaigns on its platform to make sure the money goes where it’s supposed to go.

“Our hearts go out to the Kirk family and everyone impacted by this tragedy,” a spokesperson said.

GiveSendGo didn’t respond to an inquiry for this report.

The money raised for Kirk, while impressive, is far from record territory.

The George Floyd Memorial Fund raised money from more than half a million and collected nearly $15 million.

On the conservative side, We Build the Wall, run by Trump supporters and billed as a way for private citizens to pay for border wall construction, raised $25 million before organizers were hit with federal fraud charges.

Among active campaigns, a GiveSendGo for Luigi Mangione, accused in the December slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is nearing $1.3 million.

A GoFundMe for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the illegal immigrant battling the Trump administration over his deportation, was up to $275,000 as of Monday.