Proud Boys, other far-right groups raise millions via Christian funding site: Report

A data breach from a US-based Christian crowd-funding site GiveSendGo has exposed fund raising of millions of dollars on the site for far-right groups -- including the notorious Proud Boys – that are banned from such campaigns on other platforms.

It also identifies previously anonymous large donors to far-right activists, some of whom enjoy positions of wealth, power or public responsibility, according to a Saturday report by the UK-based Guardian daily.

Some of the biggest beneficiaries, the report says, “have been members of groups such as the Proud Boys -- designated as a terrorist group in Canada” – with many of its fundraising efforts directly linked to the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump.

“The breach, shared with journalists by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, shows the site was used for a wide range of legitimate charitable purposes, such as crowd-funding medical bills, aid projects and religious missions,” the report states.

The site’s permissive stance towards far-right actors, however, meant that groups who had been banned from other fundraising platforms and payment processors following episodes of hate speech and violence have also used the platform.

According to the report, across at least 11 crowd-funding campaigns associated with the Proud Boys, members of the group, including some now facing conspiracy charges related to the Capitol attack, raised more than $375,000.

Following the January arrest of Proud Boys chairman, Enrique Tarrio, on charges related to firearms and the vandalism of a black church at a previous rally, “a fundraiser billed as a “defense fund” made $113,000 in just four days,” it added.

A large proportion of that money came from a number of high-dollar donors who elected to be anonymous on the website, but whose identifying details were nevertheless preserved by GiveSendGo.

Other Proud Boy fundraisers raised large amounts, and attracted a similar range of high-value anonymous donations.

Following the Capitol riots, a fundraiser in the name of “Medical Assistance to DC Proud Boy victims” made $106,107 on January 6-7 alone, the report pointed out.

“One anonymous donation for $5,000 was associated with an email address belonging to Ou Yin Lu, a Hacienda Heights, California, resident and businesswoman who had previously donated $14,640 to Trump’s campaign funds, the Republican National Committee and a former California state representative Bob Huff during the 2020 campaign funding cycle.”

Other Proud Boy-linked fundraisers included one for North Carolina Proud Boy, Jeremy Bertino, also known as Noble Beard, who was stabbed at a contentious rally in Washington DC on December 12. The effort raised $61,355 just between December 16 and 19.

Several parallel fundraisers also sought to finance travel and equipment for Proud Boys wanted to take part in the January 6 rally in Washington, DC.

Two separate fundraisers asked patrons to fund protective gear and communications equipment for regional Proud Boys chapters, raising $4,876 and $12,900 respectively.

Later, fundraisers were launched in the name of individual activists who are now facing serious charges arising from the events of January 6.

President of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies-Vancouver, Candyce Kelshall, who researches violent transnational social movements at Simon Fraser University, said that far-right crowd-funding on GiveSendGo was just “the tip of the iceberg,” and similar efforts were happening across up to 54 other crowd-funding sites that her research had revealed.

She added, however, that GiveSendGo was “particularly insidious” due to its presentation of such crowd-funding in the guise of religion-based charity.

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