As the amount of money raised for shooting victims grows, we're getting an idea of how one fund, totaling about $10 million, will be distributed.
Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak and Sheriff Joe Lombardo started a victims' fund on GoFundMe shortly after the tragedy.
In the short time since, nearly $10 million has been raised from more than 75,000 donors.
"People donated five and ten dollars," Sisolak said. "They didn't want this to go pay for lawyers and accountants. They wanted it to go to families and individuals. That's my feeling and that's where I want it to go."
Sisolak says experts from cities like Boston and Orlando -- people who have gone through something like this before -- flew in Thursday to consult on how to allocate the huge amount of money.
"I don't want to reinvent the wheel if they had a practice that worked for them," Sisolak said.
The commissioner believes a lot of the money will probably go to victims and their families in one-time payouts.
But GoFundMe takes 7.9 percent from every online donation plus 30 cents for each donation.
In this case, that comes out to approximately $500,000.
GoFundMe told 13 Action News in a statement it has agreed to donate $150,000 along with several of its teams "providing guidance and support" to the campaign organizers. That still means GoFundMe is set to clear somewhere in the $350,000 range.
Here is the full statement:
Support has poured in from all over the world—more than 75 countries at last count—to the campaign started by Commission Chair Steve Sisolak and Sheriff Joe Lombardo. GoFundMe’s giving platform makes it possible for anyone connected to the internet to give help to the victims and their families, quickly and easily. We are grateful for the incredible generosity that’s been shown so far, and we hope people to continue to direct their support to this GoFundMe and to those for individuals and families directly touched by the attack.
To make sure the victims and their families get the most effective and time-sensitive assistance, GoFundMe is dedicating critical resources, in addition to our donations totaling $150,000. In conjunction with state officials and nonprofit partners like the National Center for Victims of Crime, GoFundMe will take part in the management and allocation of funds. Behind the scenes, numerous teams at GoFundMe—including customer support, communications, legal, trust, executive, and community management—are in continuous communication with the campaign organizers, providing guidance and support.
While the standard fees remain in place for online donations, they do not apply to the offline donations made to support the victims and their families. GoFundMe’s fees ensure that we can remain the world’s largest social fundraising platform with best-in-class customer service, cutting-edge technical tools, and a dedicated team of specialists who work to support campaign organizers, from the most modest to the most successful like the recent campaign for the victims of the shooting.
