This article appears in the April 2026 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Read more from the issue.
Last April, on a playground in Rochester, Minnesota, a mother named Shiloh Hendrix reportedly called an autistic, five-year-old Black child a racial slur. In a video taken by a bystander named Sharmake Omar, Hendrix is accused of calling the child the N-word, which she does not deny. Claiming that the child took something of her son’s from her diaper bag, Hendrix, when asked by Omar why she doesn’t “have the balls to say it again,” replies by saying, “Fuck you, [N-word].”
The clip shows Hendrix repeating the slur at least three times. When asked by Omar if the child “digging” through her bag justifies calling him the slur, Hendrix’s response is “if that’s what he’s going to act like.” Both Omar and the child were Black and of Somali heritage.
Shortly after the video of the confrontation went viral online, Hendrix set up a campaign on the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo. “I recently had a kid steal from my 18-month-old son’s diaper bag at a park. I called the kid out for what he was,” the description reads. It goes on to claim that Hendrix has been doxed, her family members are being attacked, and that her “eldest child may not be going back to school.”
“I am asking for your help to assist in protecting my family. I fear that we must relocate. I have two small children who do not deserve this. We have been threatened to the extreme by people online. Anything will help! We cannot, and will not live in fear!” Since then, over 30,000 people have donated to the campaign. Hendrix set a goal of raising $1 million, and at the time of this story’s production, the total amount raised is just shy of $850,000.
Hendrix’s story isn’t unique. Crowdfunding campaigns created by individuals who have publicly committed bigoted, discriminatory, and even violent actions have seen a rise in popularity. Over the past decade, as crowdfunding platforms have increased in popularity, campaigns like Hendrix’s have, too.
GiveSendGo’s courting of controversial campaigns has solidified its status as an “alt-tech” platform.
Websites that allow grassroots solicitations for fundraising have become a one-stop shop for individuals and organizations. They have become associated in the public consciousness with raising money for medical care or sudden emergencies, helping many who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford assistance. GoFundMe is the largest crowdfunding site, with over $40 billion raised since 2010, and in 2017 an estimated one-third of all money raised on the platform was for medical purposes.
Donating to a crowdfunding campaign is relatively simple and accessible. After a few clicks and a quick entering of your payment method, the site does the rest. Another click and you can share a link to the campaign over text or on your social media. It’s this ease of use, and the ability to spread a campaign until it goes viral, that has led to thousands of people and organizations achieving their fundraising efforts.
GoFundMe prohibits fundraisers that support illegal activities (e.g., the purchase of narcotics or weapons that will be used in conflict), campaigns that impersonate organizations, and anything that lacks transparency about use of donated funds. Most of its competitors—Kickstarter, Patreon, Givebutter, and others—have similar guidelines. But GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising site, is both more and less restrictive. It disallows campaigns that “promote or fund” gender reassignment surgeries for minors or abortions. But in total, it only explicitly bans about one-third of the types of campaigns that GoFundMe prohibits.
This disparity has led to GiveSendGo’s popularity among individuals and groups whose campaigns do not meet GoFundMe’s guidelines, or who have tried GoFundMe and failed. GiveSendGo’s courting of controversial campaigns has solidified its status as an “alt-tech” platform, joining other services that prioritize free speech, individual liberty, and personal privacy. Unlike other platforms, GiveSendGo’s founders have consistently argued that there’s a need for their mostly noninterventional approach to moderating what campaigns use their site.
“GiveSendGo argues their approach is a humbly deferential stance relative to other platforms, who have appointed themselves as ‘arbiters of truth’ in determining what causes are ‘worthy,’” says Matthew Wade, senior lecturer in social inquiry at La Trobe University in Australia. “Instead, GiveSendGo frame themselves as defenders of individual freedom and liberty, and claim that their willingness to host controversial campaigns is simply a reflection of their nonjudgmental Christian accommodation and patriotic duty to protect fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression.”
In 2020, after Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin (two of whom died), multiple fundraisers were set up on GoFundMe to cover his legal fees. They were subsequently removed, with the company pointing to its terms of service, which “prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime.”
GiveSendGo did not have the same regulations. In a few weeks, a campaign sponsored by “Friends of the Rittenhouse Family” had raised over $500,000 to reportedly cover Rittenhouse’s legal fees.
Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges stemming from the shooting in 2021. Since then, he’s become a GOP darling, depicted as a champion of the Second Amendment, a martyr for the conservative cause. Rittenhouse has appeared at multiple Turning Point USA events, spoken on podcasts, and even released a book titled Acquitted. His political advocacy led multiple Republican members of Congress to publicly consider offering him internships, and several pieces of proposed legislation were named for him.
Arguably, Rittenhouse was the first to perfect the right-wing grift by tapping into the strength of crowdfunding. He was not the last.
GOING VIRAL ONLINE OPENS THE DOOR for others to follow in Rittenhouse’s footsteps. Coverage by news organizations, circulation on social media, and recognition by influential political figures can boost donations to crowdfunding campaigns. After Hendrix’s racist tirade began to make waves on social media, dozens of right-wing accounts posted about the video, portraying her as an antihero. X (formerly known as Twitter) is a prominent landing space for these kinds of scenarios; studies indicate that the website has seen an increase in hate speech and misinformation after Elon Musk’s acquisition in 2022 and the elimination of most content moderation.
It was on X that Hendrix’s status as a free-speech martyr propagated. High-profile right-wing figures took notice of her unashamed racial harassment. Daily Wire contributor Matt Walsh endorsed Hendrix’s GiveSendGo, saying in a YouTube video shared via X that the only way to put an end to the “outrage mob” is to “reward the person being targeted” for exhibiting hateful behavior. Eric Daugherty, the chief content officer for RightLine News, who has nearly one million followers, posted about Hendrix at least four times. As her campaign neared $700,000, he said, “I kind of think the left opened the bag with this one. Maybe stop making everyone you want to ‘cancel’ famous next time, or you may make them rich. We’re at this point now, whether anyone likes it or not.”
The reactions of Walsh, Daugherty, and others reflect a shift in the right-wing political ecosystem. They now understand that crowdfunding can be weaponized against wokeness, and that propping up individuals like Hendrix as victims of cancel culture can garner significant profit. Powering this change is “rage giving,” a phenomenon that popped up in 2016.
Monetarily supporting a person who was unapologetically racist is a way to signal allegiance to one’s political community.
“Rage giving” means exactly that: A person donates to a crowdfunding campaign or charity as an emotional response to perceived injustice. It’s not only seen on the right; in fact, rage giving was first identified due to an increase in donations to “progressive organizations” (like Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, or civil rights groups) after Donald Trump won the 2016 election. It has re-emerged time and time again, on both sides of the aisle, in the wake of major political events. Starting a fundraiser has become the expected next step after going viral, whether you’re a woman fired from Cinnabon for harassing a Somali couple or an autoworker who shouted at the president.
Today, rage giving on the right has been underscored by the unique political environment created by Trump and his allies. “It’s not an accident that these sorts of crowdsourcing campaigns emerge when you have the most prominent political figure in the land espousing explicitly racially hostile rhetoric and pursuing policies involved in dismantling diversity, equity, inclusion efforts,” says Jennifer Chudy, an associate professor of political science at Wellesley College. “To me, that’s very congruent with the broader political platform, agenda, and debate that has Trump at the forefront.”
When people like Hendrix are revered as antiheroes, or martyrs in the fight against wokeness, it reflects a top-down commitment to honoring individuals and groups that should instead be penalized. Trump’s blanket pardon of “J6ers,” or people charged with or convicted of crimes related to the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, is an example of this commitment. (A 2024 policy brief found 255 crowdfunding campaigns by January 6th participants collectively earning over $5.3 million, with over 95 percent of the fundraisers on GiveSendGo.)
“We are unfortunately in a place where our political leadership has raised up the worst of us as an example and has made it pretty clear that they don’t think that these folks should be held accountable,” says Melissa Ryan, CEO and founding partner of Inviolable. “It makes sense that supporters of our current leadership, of our president, are rallying around these same people, and the idea that they not only shouldn’t face accountability but should be rewarded for their hate.”
A GOOD EXAMPLE FOR HOW THE RIGHT-WING crowdfunding ecosystem works is the case of Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed an unarmed U.S. citizen named Renee Good in Minnesota this January. Overwhelming video evidence and testimonials from bystanders show that Ross was not in danger of being struck by Good’s vehicle when he shot her three times; after the killing, Ross can be heard on videos calling her a “fucking bitch.” Ross was put on administrative leave but has yet to be disciplined or charged with a crime related to Good’s death.
On January 7, right after Good was killed, a campaign on GoFundMe called “Support for Renee Good’s Widow and Family” saw a massive influx of donations. Within two days, the campaign raised almost $1.5 million, at which point donations were paused. In response to its success, another GoFundMe was established to support Ross (which was in line with the site’s terms of service), with the description reading, “After seeing all the media bs about a domestic terrorist getting go fund me. I feel that the officer that was 1000 percent justified in the shooting deserves to have a go fund me.”
It has raised a little less than $800,000.
Simultaneously, a campaign on GiveSendGo called “Stand With Our Brave ICE Hero” raised almost $300,000. Its description was more thorough than that of the GoFundMe, and the organizer, Tom Hennessey, quite clearly explained his inspiration for creating it: “Donate today to send a message that we back the men removing illegals and invaders from our soil, no matter the sabotage from mayors [e.g., Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis] who put foreigners over Americans. No apologies, no retreat—Mass Deportations Now!”
According to Clyde Emmons, the organizer of the GoFundMe for Ross, they were unable to get in contact with Ross’s family. But in an update posted on January 11, Emmons claimed that the organizer of the GiveSendGo campaign was in touch with Ross. “I am in contact with him [Hennessey],” and “he said he would pass it onto John himself.”
Hennessey has a track record of raising money for people on the right who have publicly demonstrated bigoted, discriminatory, and even violent behavior. A coalition of right-wing X accounts that worked to circulate Hendrix’s fundraiser included Hennessey, whose account highlights links to several other similar crowdfunding campaigns.
A video created by Hendrix and posted by @Make_EuropaSnow (an X account that focuses on spreading white supremacist and pro-eugenic content) emerged on May 20, 2025, about a month after Hendrix went viral. In it, Hendrix affirms that she received assistance from a group of X accounts, led by @Make_EuropaSnow, that all promote xenophobic, pro-eugenicist, white supremacist, and nationalist rhetoric.
In Hendrix’s own words, early on, she reached out to @AngloSaxonGirl_ (who claims to run the account @Make_EuropaSnow) after they posted the video of her calling a child a racial slur, “just kind of needing someone like-minded to talk to.” @AngloSaxonGirl_ requested that Hendrix prove her identity by sending a photo of herself, along with a piece of paper with the @AngloSaxonGirl_ username and the N-word. Hendrix obliged.
@AngloSaxonGirl_ then assisted Hendrix in promoting her GiveSendGo, which originally set a goal of $20,000. Through collaborating with @Tomhennessey69 (i.e., Tom Hennessey of “Stand With Our Brave ICE Hero”), Paul Miller (aka Gypsy Crusader, a white supremacist influencer), and others, @AngloSaxonGirl_ supported and shared Hendrix’s campaign. It worked: As the campaign progressed, Hendrix increased her goal multiple times, finally landing on $1 million, which she has nearly achieved.
While the campaign rocketed around far-right X with Hendrix’s blessing, it also found its way onto sites and communities that are harbingers of similar extremist ideologies. Many of those who donated were listed as anonymous or used pseudonyms, but even with their identities concealed, their messages revealed their reasoning for contributing and/or where they found the fundraiser.
A person who forked over $10,000, the largest one-time donation, simply commented, “Enough.” Some of the donations did include names, like “Dr. E Micheal Frens,” which mirrors the name of an X account that’s full of racist and antisemitic posts. Someone listed as Manfred von Richtofen (a misspelling of the famed “Red Baron,” Germany’s leading aviator during World War I) left a comment after their $2,001 donation with the single letter “R.” Previous donors left single letters in an attempt to spell out the N-word.
An anonymous donor contributed $2,000 and included a version of one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most notable quotes: “I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but of the content of their character.” A separate anonymous giver said on their $1,776 donation, “Thank you for noticing the content of his [the child’s] character.”
A contribution of $1,488 from “Average White Man” included a comment saying, “You did the right thing, standing up for your son! … Hopefully you can move to a nicer neighborhood, one free of these savages. Shoutout to goyimtv.” GoyimTV is an online video website operated by the Goyim Defense League, an American neo-Nazi group. A feature on GiveSendGo allows users to “like” a donation. This one got over 18,000 likes.
“I want to say how proud I am of everybody, just showing what can happen if we tribe up, and if we stick together and if we keep fighting back. Our future, our existence, depends on standing up for ourselves and not backing down,” Hendrix said in the video posted by @Make_EuropaSnow. “You can’t be afraid of the people who are so fragile to a word.”
Smiling, Hendrix expressed gratitude for her supporters and said that she received “every dime of my money.”
THE POSITIVE REACTIONS HENDRIX’S CAMPAIGN has received does display what she called “tribing up.” Monetarily supporting a person who was and continues to be unapologetically racist is a way to signal allegiance to one’s political community. While there are large contributions, many are given $7 or $10 or $15 at a time. Donation by donation, thousands of people wish to align themselves with the likes of Hendrix, people who see themselves in her, or at least the martyr figure she is presenting to the world.
“Each donation and appended comment is an unequivocal signaling mechanism not just to the beneficiary, or fellow supporters, but for everyone regarding who should be seen as upright citizens ‘deserving’ of our support,” says Wade.
Updates posted by Hendrix on GiveSendGo affirm that she has been able to access and spend the money sent to her by her supporters. “I have used the donation money to buy my family a home with plenty of land. We are now living in a place with excellent demographics.” Unlike other right-wing martyrs, Hendrix does not currently plan to become an influencer or make media appearances, but she admits that could change.
Yet Hendrix hasn’t been able to completely pull off her celebrity status without consequences. She was charged with three misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct in connection with her actions. It appears that she’s used money from her GiveSendGo to hire Brian Karalus, a prominent defense attorney, who has already filed a motion to dismiss the charges against her.
Karalus told the Prospect that Hendrix’s behavior is protected by the First Amendment, which has very few exceptions for what language is not free speech. To Karalus, Hendrix did not violate the “fighting words doctrine” or meet the criteria for defamation. “Everyone can look at something and say, this person said this or did this to incite or provoke a violent response. That’s the only way that the state could ever succeed in a criminal case against somebody for using a racial slur or for using language that is offensive or abusive or causes anger … and they don’t have that here, and that’s why we challenged it,” says Karalus. “This should never go to a jury. Jurors should not be deciding something that has no merit and it doesn’t have merit, because there isn’t even an allegation that this was done to incite violence.”
“We are hoping all of this will be resolved by Summer 2026. I’m excited to show the other side how silly they look,” Hendrix said in November.
GiveSendGo will also most likely come away with a significant chunk of cash from the wild success of Hendrix’s campaign. Although the organization does not change platform fees, the site benefits from “gift” donations. Users are given the option to send an optional “tip” to GiveSendGo whenever they donate to a campaign, which led to the site receiving almost $2.6 million between 2017 and 2022.
The company’s history shows how lucrative right-wing crowdfunding can become. In 2022, a series of protests against COVID-19 vaccine mandates occurred across Canada, in a movement known as the “Freedom Convoy.” A campaign assisting anti-vaccine Canadian truckers failed on GoFundMe, so it migrated to GiveSendGo, where supporters reportedly raised more than $9 million. According to an analysis of leaked data shared by DDoSecrets, a whistleblower nonprofit, GiveSendGo received more than $640,000 in “gift” donations from two related campaigns.
From 2023 onward, GiveSendGo has become the go-to crowdfunding source for the online right. The lawyers for Daniel Penny, a white man who killed Jordan Neely, a homeless, mentally ill Black man, on a New York City subway in 2023, raised over $3 million. ALP Pouches, Tucker Carlson and Turning Point Brands’ nicotine pouch company, has raised nearly $5.5 million to “support the Kirk family,” a reference to assassinated right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk.
It’s not clear how much GiveSendGo has been “gifted” in the past four years, or how much Hendrix’s supporters have shared, but based on past experience, it is likely to be a substantial amount. Jacob Wells, the co-founder of GiveSendGo, has said that website donations are enough to sustain a staff of 40.
CROWDFUNDING HAS LONG BEEN USED to help people or groups who have experienced harm or injustice. But when victimhood has been redefined by the dimensions of a current political moment, platforms allow people who have harmed others to claim that title, and profit from it. And there’s little that can be done to stop it.
Even though GiveSendGo and GoFundMe both have clauses in their terms of use that prohibit campaigns that promote discrimination or hate, such guidelines are not consistently enforced. GiveSendGo especially has consistently displayed an unwillingness to regulate campaigns that are in violation. “It’s not realistic that we can just sort of rely on these platforms to police themselves,” says Jeremy Snyder, a professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University. GiveSendGo co-founder Wells has defended his site’s light-touch regulations on multiple occasions, most recently in response to Hendrix’s campaign, by citing the importance of fighting back against cancel culture.
Fundraising through mutual aid or community-based strategies instead is a worthwhile option for some, particularly when it comes to campaigns related to medical expenses. This is especially noteworthy when studies have shown that crowdfunding campaigns for Black and brown people are typically less successful than those set up by whites. Access to resources like media contacts and a wealthy, expansive donor pool directly contributes to a campaign’s success. “Racialized minorities, immigrants who are new to a community, people who aren’t fluent in the dominant language, or have lower educational attainments, may not be able to craft as effective a message,” says Snyder. “All these things seem to have a role to play in who does well or not.”
Case in point: The family of the boy whom Hendrix racially harassed also created a GoFundMe. Out of their goal of $250,000, they’ve raised around $9,000. However, this was bolstered by a campaign set up by the local branch of the NAACP in Rochester, which got around $350,000 in donations before it was closed.
Ultimately, the rising number of right-wing crowdfunding campaigns represents more than just the power of rage giving, tribalism, or the end of cancel culture. It reflects how the growing reliance on charitable giving can be corrupted, in service of sticking it to the political opposition.
“As more and more of our wealth gets concentrated, grassroots fundraising is one of the last barriers we have to create funding systems that are truly accountable to people,” says Ryan. “Whether we’re talking about these right-wing crowdfunding campaigns, whether we’re talking about scam PACs, it’s just depressing, because all it’s going to do is reduce trust for one of the few sources of revenue that doesn’t come from billionaires.”
This article appears in Apr 2026 issue.
