Yes. You definitely get to keep the contact info for everyone who donated money (I once helped put up a GoFundMe for a Deaf lady my mother taught who fell on some very very hard times). I’m not an expert, but I literally still have people’s contact info, you need it for example if something goes wrong later with shipping and you need to tell that person etc.
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Had they wanted to donate the money to the federal government they could just have used the money to buy some of the land the wall is supposed to cross for market value and then sold it to the feds for $1. That should be legal, I think.
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Aw man, I wish they’d let it go, because it showed how few people thought this was a good idea. I mean in principle you would donate $1 if you thought it was an amazing idea, just to at least show the support of numbers. Instead it was a tiny, tiny fraction of the people who even voted for Trump.
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In general, this proves why we need a government and why we need taxes. Asking people to voluntarily pay for some perceived common good, just does not cut it. 20M may seem a lot of money. But it’s less than 0.4% of what is needed for the wall. And this is even a highly visible subject that many conservatives say they care about.
I wonder how many Maga suckers I could get with a gofraudme for building a wall? (in my back yard out of Lego that I already have)
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Again, no-one here – not the author, not the commenters – used the term in reference to this particular idiotic fundraiser.
According to the story, he was indeed in violation of the platform’s terms when he switched the intended recipient of the funds raised from the federal government to this 501c (because he didn’t do his homework) while leaving the page up. From the USA Today article:
But GoFundMe said due to a change in where the money would actually be going, from the federal government to a non-profit, the $20 million will be returned to the more than 337,000 who donated.
Also, as you note, the campaign(s) fell far short of its goals anyhow, so GoFundMe was going to shut down the page one way or the other if he didn’t.
Technically the hed is correct, in that the campaign (as distinct from the page) is no longer raising funds directly for Il Douche’s federal border wall (because it couldn’t) but for an amateur-hour 501c with a board of advisors that looks like the Legion of Doom that claims it will build the wall privately (which also makes no sense unless one is a sucker).
Shouldn’t zat be “Be Best”, dahlink?
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Manufacture transport and installation not included. 
I mean, you can design a prototype to keep it real…
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But those who donated via mail will have to wait. Kolfage said in an email to The Denver Post on Sunday that every person who sent a donation via check will receive a letter in the mail giving them the option to send their money to the new nonprofit or get a refund.
“We are mailing every snail mail donor a letter in the mail and updating them our new big plans to build the wall, and if they want a refund for not meeting our $1 billion goal yet, which we will, we will allow them to back out of the deal as I promised to all donors,” he wrote.
Kolfage said he didn’t know exactly how many people had mailed donations or how much money had been raised via the checks because “we are still processing the mail.” He expects to hear back from all mail donors within the next two weeks.
Hmm.
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This is what is troubling – GFM’s TOS basically allows people to change the terms by allowing refunds… but how often are refunds not properly followed through, and the new opt-in option is a way to keep donors hooked.
It’s not fraudulent, but it’s pretty gross, because I don’t think most donors realize how simple it is to update the terms and keep siphoning money from, at least in some cases, naive donors.
I think they shut it down because none of the donations were coming from Mexico, who (if you remember) was supposed to be paying for the wall.
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A lesson in big numbers! $20000000 was still just a dot on the progress line toward the total.
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