Like it or not, crowdfunding is here to stay. It refers to online campaigns set up for people to raise money for anything from medical bills to products to, more controversially, weddings and other personal things. It’s funded everything from a hoverboard to a smart watch to a potato salad. Crowdfunding has produced a lot of good things, but can also go wrong.
It works like this: someone starts the campaign and has a stated goal. People can donate whatever they want, and typically the organizer will offer rewards for certain dollar amounts. The money has to go where the organizer says it’s going to go. If the project doesn’t reach its goal, the money gets refunded.
In 2012, Erik Chevalier raised more than $122,000 to create a board game called “The Doom That Came to Atlantic City.” Progress was slow and eventually the project was cancelled. Chevalier pledged to refund everyone’s money, but instead he used it for personal expenses, including funding a move to Oregon. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated the case and in a settlement, Chevalier was told to repay almost $112,000, which has been suspended because he doesn’t have the money for it.
Two campaigns have caused controversy for similar reasons: one was a campaign for Darren Wilson, who shot unarmed Michael Brown, and the other was for officer Michael Slager, who is being charged with murder for shooting Walter Scott, who was running away. Wilson’s campaign was started by anonymous townspeople for no specific reason and raised more money than two crowdfunding campaigns for the Brown family alone. Slager’s was taken down by GoFundMe, which hosted it, for violating its terms and conditions – though it wouldn’t say which terms. Wilson’s received criticism since he is still being paid by the police force. In addition, the campaign was filled with racist comments, which people said violated GoFundMe’s terms and conditions, but it was never taken down.
Recently, Dylann Roof’s sister Amber started a crowdfunding campaign to pay for her wedding. Four days prior to her original wedding date, Dylann Roof was responsible for a racially motivated shooting at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Roof was criticized for her subesequent crowdfunding campaign writeup, which focused on the pain that the shooting caused her because her wedding was cancelled as a result of the negative media backlash. The criticism was aimed at her attempt to distance herself from the shooting by writing: “As many of you know, Michael and I had to abruptly cancel our wedding day, due to the tragedy that occurred in Charleston” and “The Charleston Massacre took place and our lives were forever changed. The media abused our privacy and published all of our wedding information and destroyed our dream day.” She only mentions the shooting victims once, at the end when she pledges to donate 10 per cent of the proceedings to the church in question. The fundraiser has since been removed.
There’s a big industry for crowdfunding weddings, too – there’s even a crowdfunding site solely for that purpose. I’m sorry, but it’s inappropriate to just hold out your hands expecting to be showered with money to fund something that’s unnecessary. It’s one thing if a friend or family member wants to crowdfund for someone else – it’s quite another to ask people to fund something you don’t actually need just because you want it. And people agree with me. Etiquette expert Lizzie Post does not think it’s appropriate to ask for people to pay for a party that they were invited to.
But like I said, it’s not all bad. The Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter raised $5.7 million for a $2 million goal, a smartwatch raised over $10 million, and a video game console called Ouya raised almost $8.6 million.
If people want to contribute money to a project they think looks interesting, then so be it. Crowdfunding can be an easy way to get money for a project to get it out there faster. However, if you’re raising money for a fun thing for yourself, that’s just tacky.
