A GoFundMe account set up for Club Q victims by Denver business owner Faith Haug had topped $837,000 by mid-weekend, and on Sunday Haug announced a “significant update” about how the funds are being managed and distributed, thanks to a new partnership with a national nonprofit.
The largest GoFundMe effort for victims of the Nov. 19 attack, which killed five and injured more than a dozen at the Colorado Springs LGBTQ+ dance club, has joined with the National Compassion Fund to create Club Q Victims and Survivors Compassion Fund, a centralized fund that vows to funnel 100% of all donations directly to victims, Haug said.
“The National Compassion Fund was created after the Aurora Theater shooting by victim families after being re-victimized in Colorado and elsewhere by nonprofits,” wrote Haug, of Denver’s Good Judy Garage, on the GoFundMe page.
She said when she launched the fundraiser the day after the shooting, she hoped to raise enough money to help offset some of the funeral and medical expenses families and victims would face.
After the original goal of $5,000 was met and left in the dust within hours, Haug set out to find the best way to manage the growing wealth of generosity, and make sure it ended up in the right hands.
“Last week, a coalition of victims from previous mass shootings came to CO to urge the State and the Colorado Healing Fund to create a centralized fund where 100% of donations will go directly to the victims,” Haug said on GoFundMe, “and they chose not to do so.”
Like a number of nonprofits that serve as a hub for charity collections, the Colorado Healing Fund, started in 2018 by a group of advocates and community leaders as a secure way for people to contribute to victims of mass casualties, takes a percentage of money raised — in its case, 10% — to cover operational expenses.
Donations to the CHF went on to reach some $4.8 million after the February 2021 mass shooting at a Boulder King Soopers grocery store. The charity’s Club Q Shooting Response had received just under $422,000 in donations as of early evening Sunday, according to its website.
Families and survivors of 15 mass shootings in America, including Aurora and Boulder, joined Haug for the Sunday morning announcement-by-Zoom, to speak about the need for “fair and transparent” fundraising, and how some felt they’d been taken advantage of by nonprofits set up in their names.
“We are all grateful to Faith for making good on her word, and we commend her on the research she has conducted as well as the knowledge, ethics and integrity she has put into action on behalf of the victims,” said Eric Mace, whose 19-year-old daughter, Ryanne, was the youngest victim of the 2008 mass shooting at Northern Illinois University, which killed six people, including the gunman.
“Donations made to this fund will go directly to victims," Mace said, "so that families of the deceased and survivors of the shooting can manage and cope with their trauma in privacy and dignity.”
Tom Teves, whose son, Alex, was killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, said his interactions with fundraising champions and campaigns after his son’s murder left him with a feeling of messy, and questionable, altruism.
“We are the people that these nonprofits are supposedly raising funds for and claim to be helping us, but we’re here to tell you the model doesn’t work in this situation,” said Teves. “The model that needs to work is that 100% of donations go to victims. We have a voice and we’re using it today.
"What anyone else tells you is irrelevant, because they have never lived in our shoes," he said. "And god willing, they never will have to.”
The National Compassion Fund has served as a central location for public donations to victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting, massacres in Atlanta, Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, among other mass casualty events.
Haug said she has assembled a “steering committee” of local LGBTQ+ community members and professionals to help develop a protocol for administering the funds.
The process will be open for public comment and “taken to the victims themselves” before finalization, she said.
The fundraising campaign is open-ended, meaning no closing date has been set. Victims’ families and survivors will get the final say on how money collected through the Club Q Victims and Survivors Compassion Fund is applied.
"Only the victims know what the best use of the funds means for them," she said. "Not me. Not the community.”