Wildfires in Los Angeles destroyed the home of a cancer patient who had just received good news about recovery, and the home of another whose cancer had just returned. They leveled the house of a woman who had lost everything in a World War II bombing. They leveled carefully planted fruit trees and flower beds. They destroyed a wedding ring on the eve of a couple's 40th wedding anniversary. They burned the beloved instrument of a 90-year-old jazz musician. They dismantled a nursery they had just prepared for the birth of a baby girl.
These stories of loss come from GoFundMe. Since the wildfires broke out last week, the site has been inundated with thousands of people raising funds for victims. A GoFundMe spokesperson told me that as of Tuesday evening, they had raised more than $100 million in total. (The company did not immediately respond when asked about the current total.) In recent days, I found myself scrolling through page after page of Angelenos documenting their losses. For someone like me who doesn't live near Los Angeles, the devastation can start to read like a set of statistics—more than 12,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed; approximately 40,000 acres of land burned. But statistics have a strange way of confusing the severity and depth of the damage. On GoFundMe, the hurt is shocking and visceral. As the disaster unfolds, the site is becoming a real-time record of wildfire devastation.
Every GoFundMe page is unique in its own way. Some fundraisers are started by the victims themselves, others by loved ones who want to help in any way they can. The events come with descriptions explaining why residents are asking for donations, and many detail the small but irreplaceable possessions the fires took: family photos and home videos, letters and manuscripts, rare books and childhood diaries. Gone are the works of art that residents spent their lives creating. One woman who lost her home had only recently moved in, and she hadn't even packed her belongings. Another family spent years remodeling their house by hand. Many people lost their parents' ashes. These fundraisers reflect the emotional toll of the disaster. They contain mourning of unimaginable shock and disaster. But they also contain love, gratitude, and extraordinary resilience. "I still laugh when my Roomba app tells me it's time to replace certain parts (just certain parts?)," one victim wrote.
For those of us not directly connected to the fires, GoFundMe can help us understand the damage. It’s not just because of the details that go into every fundraiser. The pages spread quickly across the Internet. They circulate in group chats, post to Instagram, and spread via email. They are compiled into sometimes very long lists and spreadsheets: As Rachel Davies, a writer who compiled more than 1,000 fundraiser lists, told the Associated Press, “I feel like I’m starting with a It’s a weird way to connect with all these people, I don’t know.” Through these channels, you might learn who has a sibling, a former professor, or a best friend who suffered. The world has become a little smaller.
That GoFundMe is so full of stories also shows how deeply the platform is embedded in natural disaster response infrastructure. So far, more than $100 million has been raised for Los Angeles wildfire relief through the site, nearly equal to the total amount of natural disaster relief funds crowdsourced on GoFundMe in 2023. In fact, in May, Axios According to reports, the number of people raising funds for natural disasters has increased by 90% in the past five years. “GoFundMe has become the dominant form of disaster aid,” Emily Gallagher, a finance professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told me.
In 2021, a wildfire broke out just a few miles from the Boulder home where Gallagher lives, destroying more than 1,000 homes. Together with colleagues, she studied the use of GoFundMe after communities recovered and found that victims who used the platform were 27% more likely to begin rebuilding their homes within a year of a fire. Two-thirds of Americans with homeowners insurance are underinsured from wildfires; if a disaster strikes, they won't be able to recover the full cost of their losses. At the same time, applying for and receiving federal aid can be cumbersome. This is why crowdfunding is so attractive. Donations can be used immediately for whatever purpose the recipient needs.
But GoFundMe's role in fighting fires has a dark side. Crowdfunding tends to favor the rich: In the case of the fire that broke out near Gallagher, higher-income households were more likely to have friends launch a campaign on their behalf. These households with larger, more affluent social networks subsequently raised more money through their own GoFundMe campaigns than lower-income residents. The end result is that those who need funding the most may be least likely to receive it. For those who do benefit from the platform, FEMA warns that funds raised through GoFundMe may affect aid eligibility, which could cause more stress and confusion for already overwhelmed victims.
When a catastrophic event like the Los Angeles fires gains national attention, many people want to help. Without any personal connection, they may choose to donate to a campaign that resonates with them personally for whatever reason. As sociologist Matthew Wade has argued, this could lead to the formation of efficient sympathy markets, where donors are tasked with making moral judgments about who is most deserving of their donations. In extreme cases, GoFundMe may perversely encourage users to package their despair into a marketable narrative. Trauma sells.
Scammers lurking on the platform are well aware of this. GoFundMe has long battled fraud as people make up stories of woe to scam unsuspecting donors out of their cash. (So much so that a website called GoFraudMe was once dedicated to tracking fake campaigns.) To help prevent something like the Los Angeles fires, a GoFundMe spokesperson told me that the company has set up a centralized hub of verified fundraisers that Reviewed by a team of experts. Still, when a friend of one victim launched a fundraiser after she lost her rental home, copycats emerged within hours. "Someone is trying to break in and trying to profit from my tragedy," victim told this New York Times.
As fires continue to devastate Los Angeles, new fundraisers keep popping up on GoFundMe: One for a 15-year-old seeking help for his mother, and another for a 94-year-old artist who lost his A lifetime of painting and writing value. If the fires are a window into our grim climate future, so is the fundraiser itself. There is a double tragedy in the story. Each individual account recounts a profound loss. But these fundraisers add up to a bigger story: The financial system is unprepared for the new reality of climate catastrophe.