The GoFundMe campaign dedicated to Americans funding the Texas border
wall has been shut down after funders failed to reach the $1 billion
goal set.
Bobby Whithorne, director of North America Communications for
GoFundMe said donors will receive their money on April 11, unless they
choose to donate their contribution to the campaign creator’s new
venture, GoFundMe said in an email to the campaign’s participants.
Brian Kolfage, a triple-amputee Air Force veteran, raised more than
$20 million on the crowd-funding platform to build a wall along the
U.S.-Mexico border. At the onset of the campaign, Kolfage said he would
only collect the funds if the campaign hit its goal of $1 billion about
one-fifth of what President Trump has been demanding from Congress to
build it.
“However, that did not happen. This means all donors will receive a
refund,” Whithorne said. The refund announcement came a day after
BuzzFeed News reported that Kolfage pocketed money in a previous
GoFundMe campaign intended to help other wounded soldiers.
Kolfage raised $16,246 for a veteran mentorship program, but BuzzFeed
News reports that after collecting the funds, he didn’t use the money
as promised: none of the partners he claimed to have worked with
including Walter Reed, Brooke Army Medical Center and Landstuhl Regional
Medical Center in Germany have any records that Kolfage worked with
their patients or donated money, according to representatives at the
centers that BuzzFeed News spoke to.
In an update to donors Friday, Kolfage did not say missing the goal
was the main reason for the refund. Instead, he pointed to government
inefficiencies and the fact that the federal government “won’t be able
to accept our donations anytime soon.”