GoFundMe Is The New FEMA

As the climate disaster worsens, the public is losing access to federal aid

Hurricane season starts next week. And long-term forecasts suggest it might be a bad one. What will happen to people who lose their homes, or in communities where infrastructure is damaged? All signs point towards desperate pleas for help on crowdfunding platforms, as the Trump administration dismantles the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

One of the big pieces in the unravelling of America’s social contract that I’ve been watching is FEMA disaster relief. As the second Trump administration closes the window humanity had to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, it’s also opening a new one, through which we’re already glimpsing a future in which disaster victims are left to fend for themselves, without relief from the federal government.

Let’s rewind back to Hurricane Helene, which ravaged parts of southern Appalachia last September. At the time, the election was in full swing, and the very idea of disaster relief got all wrapped up in batshit insane politics.

Biden reacted with sober responsibility, immediately accepting requests for federal assistance from governors in impacted states, and deploying FEMA to do its job without White House meddling. But like any huge disaster, the damage wasn’t going to get fixed immediately, and the scale of both the destruction and area impacted by it meant that many rural communities were left without much real help for an extended period.

Trump and his far-right goons pounced on the opportunity, spreading all manner of conspiracy theories and disinformation, including that FEMA was murdering babies, stealing people’s properties, and that Biden had somehow steered the hurricane itself into the area. When federal aid workers did eventually start knocking on doors bearing one-time cash payments in advance of more time-consuming relief, victims of that propaganda campaign took shots at them.

Identifying the clunky, difficult-to-communicate nature of large civil systems Trump saw a potential campaign opportunity, and launched his own “official” response to the disaster by setting up a GoFundMe page as an alternative to federal relief measures. To-date (it’s still running), that’s raised over $8 million, about 100 times less than FEMA itself had spent on that disaster, as of January 22. After an initial promise to donate $25 million of his own money to the effort, Trump appears to have made no contribution to that GoFundMe.

There’s two interesting takeaways in those numbers: 1) they indicate the vast spending necessary in response to big disasters. Private fundraising efforts, even the most well organized or most visible, can never hope to match that scale. And, 2) once you dive into how that money was spent, you start to understand why public funding, with all of its transparency and tracking and rules, is necessary.

As of January, FEMA had spent $507 million on direct assistance to to individuals and communities. That included one-time cash payments, assistance in rebuilding, an ongoing shelter program, 12.6 million meals and 12.8 million liters of clean drinking water. A further $351.5 million had been spent on debris removal.

When a President declares a federal disaster, FEMA also covers the cost of National Guard deployments. In Helene’s aftermath, more than 6,700 Guard troops were deployed across 16 states to perform high-water rescues, debris removal, supply-distribution, and more.

The $8 million that Trump’s GoFundMe raised went to Evangelical Christian NGOs, with no public tracking of how that money was then spent. Crowdfunding isn’t subject to the same disclosure requirements as public charities.

I’m writing about this today because the new administration’s general attempts to shift the role of the federal government away from serving normal people and towards working exclusively in the benefit of billionaires, as well as specific comments from officials, have made the future of federal disaster relief an open question.

“We are eliminating FEMA,” Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security stated during a cabinet hearing in March. DHS is the parent agency to FEMA. In a separate hearing, Noem went on to elaborate, “Our goal is that states should manage their emergencies.”

Trump himself has called FEMA a, “disaster,” and suggested, it should "go away.”

In one of his early executive orders in January, Trump established the FEMA Review Council, which held its first meeting on May 20. According to the order, it has 180 days from that date to submit a report with recommendations on how to “reform” the agency.

Like other federal agencies, FEMA has also been subject to the administration’s downsizing efforts. Since Trump took office, it’s lost about 2,000 workers, or one-third of its total staff. And those losses have compounded with cuts to other agencies in ways that are already compromising disaster response. AmeriCorp, which provides funding for volunteers who assist with disaster relief, has lost about 90 percent of its staff for instance. The EPA, which has lost 1,000 staff and is facing targeted budget reductions of 65 percent, coordinates with the Army Corps of Engineers to perform hazardous debris removal post-disaster, so rebuilding efforts can begin. USACE is down 3 percent on staffing and is limiting operations due to an ongoing freeze on new hiring.

All the above is already combining to short circuit relief efforts for the LA fires. But President Biden approved that funding before leaving office. What about disaster that have occurred since Trump entered office for the second time on January 20?

Perhaps the most indicative event was the tornado outbreak that struck Arkansas in March. That state’s Governor is Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as press secretary during Trump’s first time, and is all-in on the whole fascism thing. She had her first request for FEMA assistance denied, and waited a full-month for word of her appeal, before reaching out to the President personally by telephone. And even then, Trump only approved individual assistance for the disaster. Sanders’ request for help repairing public infrastructure was denied.

The Governor herself acknowledges this will create a significant burden for both state and local governments. Arkansas itself is only able to cover 35 percent of the cost of repairing the infrastructure, and the rest will fall to local governments.

“The State of Arkansas is going to step up,” the Governor stated.

The purpose of FEMA’s disaster relief efforts is to spread the cost of emergency assistance, repairs, and rebuilding nationally. When a federal emergency declaration is made, FEMA works to coordinate activities across the multiple federal agencies tasked with performing rescues, then rebuilding. FEMA also provides flood insurance in otherwise uninsurable places, conducts damage assessments, and distributes billions of dollars of aid for everyone from individuals to state and local governments.

FEMA was not designed to replace insurance coverage, but to augment payments where necessary, and provide temporary relief where it’s urgently needed, on a timeframe private insurers are incapable of. When the power and communications are out across large areas, and travel is impossible, Americans know they can rely on FEMA to deliver critical supplies like drinking water, to evacuate them from flooded buildings, and to safely shelter and care for victims. Or at least they did know they could rely on FEMA, past tense.

Spreading this cost across society acknowledges that allowing communities to suffer in the wake of a disaster isn’t just a moral failing, but has real economic costs as well. When a city, a region, or population loses its ability to consume goods and produce work, getting it back online as quickly and painlessly as possible is simply good economics.

Disasters like Helene or Katrina or Lahaina, or Los Angeles are simply larger than any single state would be able to respond to as quickly or as broadly as the federal government. Many local governments risk bankruptcy if they don’t receive federal aid in the even of a disaster.

But as the impacts of climate change continue to accelerate, giant disasters like those are also becoming more frequent, and causing more damage. That’s reducing the role private insurance is able to play, and asking more of governments at all levels, especially FEMA. Something has to give, but shrinking or eliminating federal disaster aid is itself a disastrous answer.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Arkansas. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a story about the struggles residents in a town there called Cave City are facing after those months-long delays in FEMA assistance, and limited efforts from the state. Many are Trump voters, who find it hard to square their unshakable belief in a President they see as a godlike figure, with the cruel realities they’re now dealing with.

The Times story concludes with a quote from the town’s mayor: “No matter what political party is in charge and what that leads to, we’ve got to make sure we’re taking care of people.”

But by all appearances, people in Cave City are still not being taken care. I ran the town’s name through GoFundMe and the first result was an appeal from Cave City’s fire chief for assistance:

Turning to GoFundMe is not without issues. And I’m not just talking about the moral depravity of a nation abandoning both first responders and normal citizens. Now that some limited FEMA funds are arriving in Cave City, people who have accepted help from donations solicited through crowdfunding may find that doing so will deny them eligibility for federal assistance.

“We understand that recovering from a disaster is incredibly challenging, and many people turn to resources like GoFundMe,” stated FEMA in a now-deleted post on Twitter. “GoFundMe can be a great way to cover immediate expenses, but it’s important to know that using it for certain purposes might affect your eligibility for FEMA assistance.”

“For example, FEMA might be able to help you to replace a vehicle that was damaged during the disaster. However, if your GoFundMe page clearly states that the funds you’re raising will be used to replace your car, FEMA won’t be able to provide assistance for that specific need…We know this can be frustrating, especially when you’re trying to manage so much, all at once. That’s why we encourage you to carefully consider how you describe your needs when creating a GoFundMe page.”

FEMA is not authorized to provide duplicate assistance for specific needs. If you receive money from another source to help with, say, home repairs, FEMA may not be able to go on to provide further home repair assistance.

This creates an obvious dilemma. Disaster victims in desperate need of financial assistance may no longer be able to rely on certainty from the government. Do you risk creating a GoFundMe in order to raise that money, knowing that there is some chance FEMA may eventually come through? Because, if you do go ahead with crowdfunding, you could be spoiling your chances of a possibly larger payment from FEMA at some point in the future. There’s no way to know in advance, until your claim is approved or denied.

And the trouble with crowdfunding doesn’t stop there. As we saw with Trump’s own GoFundMe for Helene victims, money raised on such platforms may not be distributed directly to people in need, but rather through various NGOs. And, when Republicans get involved, there’s a good chance those NGOs will be faith-based organizations. Specifically evangelical Christian ones.

As Heather Cox Richardson explained in a newsletter last week, that may represent part of deliberate effort by evangelicals to capture a societal role for their belief system. By making disaster victims reliant on that particular church for aid, shifting funds away from federal assistance gives evangelicals a powerful tool they can use both for recruitment and to impose their extremist beliefs on the rest of society.

In the aftermath of Helene, Trump took credit for the disaster aid provided by Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse. But Samaritan’s Purse doesn’t just being assistance, it also brings an effort at conversion. Put relief funds in private hands, and the potential conflicts are immediately obvious: Will a victim’s religious, sexual, racial or political identity become a factor in aid distribution? Will pressure be exerted for a quid pro quo (say, church attendance that next Sunday)? Will churchgoing communities be prioritized in terms of outright amounts of assistance or in its timely delivery? What administration fees, salaries, or other kickbacks are religious organizations pocketing? I could go on, but you get the idea.

Of course, a portion of funds raised by crowdfunding platforms is also turned into profits for those platforms. GoFundMe is a for-profit company that charges 2.9 percent plus .30 cents for all transactions.

Is that Helene GoFundMe an indication of what disaster relief might look like in the future? If so, it’s not an encouraging one. With hundreds of times less funding, limited coordination, and zero accountability, there’s also chance a much-needed offer of help may also be conditioned on adherence to a specific religious doctrine.

And I haven’t even mentioned that the administration has also cancelled billions of dollars in funding for grant programs administered by FEMA intended to help communities prepare for the impacts of disasters. Or that they just cancelled the agency’s strategic plan for this coming hurricane season. So while American citizens have lost their ability to rely on FEMA for assistance in the event of a disaster, they’re also being limited in their ability to prepare for one. Disasters are getting worse, just as we’re giving up our ability to handle them.

Top photo: NOAA (RIP)

Wes Siler is your guide to leading a more exciting life outdoors. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports independent journalism and gives you personal access to his expertise and network, which he’ll use to help you plan trips, purchase gear, and solve problems. You can read more about what he’s doing on Substack through this link.