Update 3/31 5:57 p.m.: GoFundMe says it has resolved the issues and gotten in touch with campaign organizers to let them know they will soon be able to receive their funds.

“With a decade of experience in handling national tragedies around the world, our Trust & Safety team is able to quickly mobilize to review all fundraisers, verify their beneficiaries and ensure funds only go into the right hands,” a spokesperson told DCist in an email statement.

Goggans confirmed with DCist that there is no longer a hold on the account for the East of the River mutual aid fund, though the time estimate for receiving the funds is April 8.

Original: 

As the coronavirus outbreak took hold of the D.C. area two weeks ago, a group of local activists immediately leaped into action, creating a mutual aid network ward-by-ward to help vulnerable neighbors get access to food, supplies, and financial support. And many of them turned to the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe to raise financial support.

But now, several of those organizers say they haven’t been able to access the funds they raised via the platform to buy basic supplies. Black Lives Matter D.C. first tweeted about the issue on Tuesday after dealing with complications withdrawing money from GoFundMe for nearly two weeks, according to emails organizers shared with DCist.

“We haven’t gotten any [of the money we raised],” says April Goggans, an organizer with BLM D.C. who has taken charge of the mutual aid networks in wards 7 and 8. “We had put fires out asking for people to donate directly to our PayPal or CashApp … but that’s pretty much gone and we have stuff to do and buy.”

Goggans says that she and a core team of about ten organizers have spent the last two weeks taking shifts answering a hotline and delivering needed supplies to residents who don’t feel safe leaving their homes or who simply don’t have the financial resources to purchase groceries and other items.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in the D.C. area has shut down entire industries and forced thousands of people into their homes, with tens of thousands of people applying for unemployment. In response, mutual aid networks have been making grocery runs for people, delivering food, cleaning supplies, diapers, and even hot meals.

The East of the River network has gotten more than 2,000 calls to the hotline over the last two weeks, Goggans says, and they’ve spent about $17,000 buying and delivering things for people thus far. While speaking with me on the phone, Goggans said she had 400 prepared bags of toiletries sitting in her front room. Organizers have also spent funds helping local college students move out of their housing when schools moved online and even closed their campuses.

There is $31,000 currently raised in the East of the River mutual aid GoFundMe to support those efforts. But on March 19, GoFundMe sent Goggans an email requesting that she add new information to her fundraiser description before they would release funds. The next day, Goggans indicated that the information had been sent, per emails shared with DCist. On March 25, GoFundMe sent another email asking for documentation verifying Goggans’ connection with the organization, which she says she sent. On March 31, emails show that Goggans followed up asking why funds still hadn’t been released. She hasn’t heard back yet.

GoFundMe has not responded to a request for comment from DCist. The crowdfunding company is facing unprecedented demand amid the crisis, with the New York Times reporting that coronavirus-related campaigns spiked by 60 percent between March 20 and 24. The outlet reports that there are now more than 35,000 such pages. Meanwhile, the pandemic has also released a flood of scammers looking to make a quick buck. (Even before the crisis, though, there have been reports of difficulties getting funds from campaigns, including an effort to support vendors laid off from the Washington Post Express.)

Some organizers have resorted to spending their own money to make up for the shortfall caused by the delay in accessing GoFundMe dollars.

Organizer Katie Hamm said the mutual aid network in Ward 4 has racked up about $3,000 in expenses from grocery shopping trips, and that some volunteers have stopped helping because they can no longer afford to front the money for supplies.

After days of problems trying to access money from the Ward 4 GoFundMe, Hamm says she finally received notification on Tuesday that the company had verified all the necessary information and would set up a transfer.  Hamm says she should receive the money she raised–now nearly $9,000—in two to five days.

Natacia Knapper, who has been organizing mutual aid efforts and the GoFundMe page for Ward 1, says she has also spent about $2,000 of her own money buying groceries and other supplies for people who need it.

“I’m not somebody that has a ton of disposable income. I’m a community organizer,” Knapper says. “I am doing this with the expectation that it will be reimbursed. But this is not sustainable, I can’t do it long term.”

So far, Knapper says they’ve spent $4,000 delivering groceries to people in Ward 1, as well as offering direct financial help to people who have utility bills and other expenses they suddenly can’t afford. The GoFundMe she created has raised more than $16,000 so far, but now she says they’ll have to raise emergency money this week to get people supplies while the logistics of the fundraiser money are figured out.

Unlike Goggans and Hamm, Knapper says she had originally been able to access some of the funds she raised via the GoFundMe. She was getting daily deposits into an account when suddenly they stopped, and she emailed the company to find out why.

Knapper says they asked her to update information in her description, which she did, but the delays have continued. On March 24, she thought the issues had been cleared again only to receive another email two days later asking her for more information.

“They weren’t specifying what information I needed to give to get the hold lifted,” she says. “There was no phone number to call GoFundMe, and I really tried. Like I thought ‘they have got to have a main office somewhere.’ But I couldn’t find one to save my life.”

Goggans also says she is frustrated that there does not appear to be any real people available to speak by phone or handle requests, especially when organizers and other community members are experiencing the lack of funding as an emergency.

“We need to stock up on things that we need. We assume people will start calling for financial help in the next few weeks,” says Goggans. “We need to get our basic needs met. Stock food and water. We just keep getting calls from people, today we got a call from a group of seniors around the corner from where I live who are really in need of food and stuff.”