When the Eaton wildfire swept into Los Angeles, Nick Carranza, a 45-year-old content director and producer, rushed to the house of his longtime friend, who was battling 15-foot flames with no firefighters in sight. Together, they managed to extinguish the blaze using water from a neighbor’s swimming pool. Carranza, a former resident of Altadena, couldn’t sit on the sidelines during the crisis. He and a few of his friends created a “One Love Altadena” GoFundMe campaign to help vulnerable Altadena residents displaced from the fires. “Altadena is such a diverse community with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds,” Carranza said. “I knew there were going to be people in trouble.” After reaching an initial target goal of $10,000, their GoFundMe continues to collect money, with proceeds going to help Black and Latino families with their own fundraising campaigns. Enlarge Image Ever since the Southern California wildfires broke out earlier this month, more than 600,000 donors have contributed to GoFundMe campaigns. As of Jan. 24, over $200 million has been raised on the platform to assist families, businesses and communities impacted by the crisis, according to a company representative. The site’s California Wildfires Hub compiles a large number of individual fundraisers, and a general Wildfire Relief Fund sends “emergency relief grants of $1,000 each to individuals who have lost homes, loved ones and property due to the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires.” If you’re interested in initiating or donating to a GoFundMe campaign to help the thousands of folks impacted by the ongoing Southern California wildfires, it’s important to know where to begin, how to verify beneficiaries and what pitfalls you might encounter. How does GoFundMe work? GoFundMe is a crowdfunding platform where people create fundraising pages for themselves or loved ones facing financial hardship, whether due to expensive medical treatment, a costly accident or a natural disaster.The platform is easy to use. With a series of prompts, you can quickly set up a campaign and a fundraising goal for your cause. Once your fundraiser is live, you can add more information or change your fundraising goal. You can request a withdrawal of funds after your campaign starts, with transfers typically taking anywhere from two to five business days. To cover payment processing, a standard fee, currently 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, is deducted from the donation. Anyone can be a donor and contribute as little as $5 to a fundraising campaign.Why are people using GoFundMe for disaster relief?A major reason people are using GoFundMe for disaster relief is how easily they can spread the word through personal networks. You can share the link to your fundraising campaign via email, text or social media. For example, after I donated to several campaigns of acquaintances who lost their homes in the wildfires, I shared the links on my social media, which helped bring in more donations. GoFund
Lun. Gen 27th, 2025
