Latest news with #AllanOliver
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Toronto man had to fight GoFundMe to get paid after organizer gambled away funds for his brother's funeral
In the aftermath of his younger brother's sudden death last year, Allan Oliver says he was surprised when a family friend set up a GoFundMe to help pay for the funeral. "My first thought was like, 'Wow, I can't believe someone would do this for our family,' " Oliver told CBC News. His brother, Aidan, a well-known figure in their community of Shelburne, Ont., was just 23 years old when he died after a medical episode on Oct. 30. Oliver watched as donations from the community poured in — eventually, more than $15,000 was raised. He says his family then planned a larger funeral to make sure everyone could pay their respects. "Through this fundraiser, there were hundreds of people helping us through it," he said. "And that was just really comforting." Those feelings of comfort turned to anxiety in the months that followed, when he encountered repeated challenges trying to obtain the remaining balance of donations from the organizer. On Nov. 11, the day of his brother's funeral, the organizer gave the family $7,000 of the $15,200 raised. But the remaining $8,200 had not been paid to him, and he had an outstanding bill from the funeral home to worry about. "I was giving the organizer the benefit of the doubt," Oliver told CBC News. His feelings of anxiety turned out to be warranted — months later, the organizer admitted to him in a text message that she had withdrawn the remaining money and gambled it way. After public pressure from community members, Oliver says a relative of the organizer returned the funds to him this week — nearly seven months after his brother's funeral. CBC News is not naming the organizer as the funds have since been repaid. Oliver is still pushing for policy changes at GoFundMe, and says the company needs to do more to ensure the intended beneficiaries receive the money that is raised for them. A spokesperson for GoFundMe defended its current policies in a statement, saying misuse of funds is "rare." In the statement, GoFundMe also said it acted quickly to investigate Oliver's case and noted that it does have a Beneficiary Guarantee, which aims to ensure money gets to the intended recipients. In January, Oliver reached out to the organizer via text to ask about the remaining funds so he could pay the rest of the funeral home bill. Texts reviewed by CBC News show the organizer responded and said she had "lots of things going on," but that she'd call him. Oliver says that call never happened, and the organizer didn't respond to multiple messages he sent after that. At the end of February, he asked the organizer if he could take over the GoFundMe account, and she responded that she would reach out to GoFundMe to try to arrange that. WATCH | Toronto man pushes for GoFundMe changes to ensure people get funds: In March, after receiving no further texts from the organizer, Oliver reached out to the fundraising platform through an online portal. In an emailed response reviewed by CBC News, GoFundMe told him they couldn't share information without permission from the organizer — who was CC'd on the note — and that they couldn't move forward in helping him. Oliver again attempted to contact the organizer via text, but she didn't respond to the e-mail chain from GoFundMe. In May, he says the funeral home told him interest would start accruing on his account at the end of the month if the remaining balance wasn't paid. "It was stressful, it was frustrating," he said. "It's tough to really move on if you have this bill over your head that you have to pay." Then, on May 30, Oliver received an email from GoFundMe stating that they'd been told his family "may not have received the funds raised." The email encouraged him to submit a claim with GoFundMe, which he did, also submitting proof that he was the intended beneficiary. After that, he says GoFundMe confirmed that the organizer had started withdrawing money from the funds raised on Nov. 6, and by Nov. 13 — just two days after his brother's funeral — the entire balance had been withdrawn. "My heart was in my stomach," said Oliver. "It confirmed everything that I was most fearful of." Oliver confronted the organizer with this information via text. In a subsequent message, she apologized and admitted she had "a very bad gambling problem." She said she wanted to pay him back but could only do so in bi-weekly instalments of $500. In a June 2 email, after Oliver made GoFundMe aware of the organizer's admission, a company representative told him that its policy requires people to first try to remedy the situation directly with the organizer. They told him that in his case, since the organizer had offered to create a payment plan to recover the funds, he should speak with her before the company took any further steps. They also told him that if the organizer didn't comply with the payment plan, he could then file a claim under their Beneficiary Guarantee. Oliver questions why the company would make him responsible for recovering the funds — especially from someone who'd already demonstrated that she wasn't trustworthy. "I just think that's unacceptable because they have all the proof that the organizer has misused the funds," he said. "And the onus shouldn't be on myself to trust the organizer for a payment plan." Oliver says his focus now is on the actions taken by the fundraising platform itself. "I think GoFundMe has handled this poorly, to be honest," he said. He wants to know why the company didn't flag an irregularity when he reached out to them in March about dispersing the remainder of the funds, especially if they knew the money had been withdrawn months early. "That should have flagged something within their internal investigation or fraud team to say, 'Hey, this guy is the intended beneficiary and he's saying that he hasn't received the money,' " said Oliver. There have been other high-profile instances of money from GoFundMe campaigns being misused. After the 2018 Humboldt Broncos tragedy, a man was sentenced to jail in part for setting up a GoFundMe for the victims, then depositing the funds into his own bank account and spending the money. The challenge, according to one legal expert, is that it can be difficult to hold companies like GoFundMe liable when donations are misused because it would have to be proven that the company was aware the funds were going to be misappropriated before they were released. "If you knew, or you should have known, that the funds were not being used for the intended purpose, then you would have liability," said Tanya Walker, a Toronto-based lawyer who has handled many fraud cases. To try to prevent misuse of funds, Walker says GoFundMe could consider alternative measures — such as ensuring the funds are deposited directly into the account of the intended beneficiary, or introducing a third-party guarantor in instances where the organizer is raising funds for another person. In Oliver's case, a GoFundMe spokesperson told CBC News that the company had "removed the fundraiser, and the organizer's account has been banned from using our platform for any future fundraisers." More broadly, the spokesperson said, "beneficiaries are protected by the GoFundMe Beneficiary Guarantee, which offers protection in the rare case that an Organizer does not deliver funds to the intended recipients of a fundraiser." But Oliver says that's not good enough, and that he doesn't believe he should have been asked to enforce a payment plan before becoming eligible for support from GoFundMe. He says more needs to be done to prevent something like this from happening again. "I think this is a huge gap in their systems and their policies of how to actually ensure money is being sent to the intended recipient," Oliver said.
CBC
3 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Toronto man had to fight GoFundMe to get paid after organizer gambled away funds for his brother's funeral
Social Sharing In the aftermath of his younger brother's sudden death last year, Allan Oliver says he was surprised when a family friend set up a GoFundMe to help pay for the funeral. "My first thought was like, 'Wow, I can't believe someone would do this for our family,' " Oliver told CBC News. His brother, Aidan, a well-known figure in their community of Shelburne, Ont., was just 23 years old when he died after a medical episode on Oct. 30. Oliver watched as donations from the community poured in — eventually, more than $15,000 was raised. He says his family then planned a larger funeral to make sure everyone could pay their respects. "Through this fundraiser, there were hundreds of people helping us through it," he said. "And that was just really comforting." Those feelings of comfort turned to anxiety in the months that followed, when he encountered repeated challenges trying to obtain the remaining balance of donations from the organizer. On Nov. 11, the day of his brother's funeral, the organizer gave the family $7,000 of the $15,200 raised. But the remaining $8,200 had not been paid to him, and he had an outstanding bill from the funeral home to worry about. "I was giving the organizer the benefit of the doubt," Oliver told CBC News. His feelings of anxiety turned out to be warranted — months later, the organizer admitted to him in a text message that she had withdrawn the remaining money and gambled it way. After public pressure from community members, Oliver says a relative of the organizer returned the funds to him this week — nearly seven months after his brother's funeral. CBC News is not naming the organizer as the funds have since been repaid. Oliver is still pushing for policy changes at GoFundMe, and says the company needs to do more to ensure the intended beneficiaries receive the money that is raised for them. A spokesperson for GoFundMe defended its current policies in a statement, saying misuse of funds is "rare." In the statement, GoFundMe also said it acted quickly to investigate Oliver's case and noted that it does have a Beneficiary Guarantee, which aims to ensure money gets to the intended recipients. Months-long attempt to receive funds In January, Oliver reached out to the organizer via text to ask about the remaining funds so he could pay the rest of the funeral home bill. Texts reviewed by CBC News show the organizer responded and said she had "lots of things going on," but that she'd call him. Oliver says that call never happened, and the organizer didn't respond to multiple messages he sent after that. At the end of February, he asked the organizer if he could take over the GoFundMe account, and she responded that she would reach out to GoFundMe to try to arrange that. WATCH | Toronto man pushes for GoFundMe changes to ensure people get funds: A GoFundMe raised $15K, but grieving brother says getting money was a fight 18 minutes ago Duration 3:17 In March, after receiving no further texts from the organizer, Oliver reached out to the fundraising platform through an online portal. In an emailed response reviewed by CBC News, GoFundMe told him they couldn't share information without permission from the organizer — who was CC'd on the note — and that they couldn't move forward in helping him. Oliver again attempted to contact the organizer via text, but she didn't respond to the e-mail chain from GoFundMe. In May, he says the funeral home told him interest would start accruing on his account at the end of the month if the remaining balance wasn't paid. "It was stressful, it was frustrating," he said. "It's tough to really move on if you have this bill over your head that you have to pay." GoFundMe reaches out Then, on May 30, Oliver received an email from GoFundMe stating that they'd been told his family "may not have received the funds raised." The email encouraged him to submit a claim with GoFundMe, which he did, also submitting proof that he was the intended beneficiary. After that, he says GoFundMe confirmed that the organizer had started withdrawing money from the funds raised on Nov. 6, and by Nov. 13 — just two days after his brother's funeral — the entire balance had been withdrawn. "My heart was in my stomach," said Oliver. "It confirmed everything that I was most fearful of." Oliver confronted the organizer with this information via text. In a subsequent message, she apologized and admitted she had "a very bad gambling problem." She said she wanted to pay him back but could only do so in bi-weekly instalments of $500. In a June 2 email, after Oliver made GoFundMe aware of the organizer's admission, a company representative told him that its policy requires people to first try to remedy the situation directly with the organizer. They told him that in his case, since the organizer had offered to create a payment plan to recover the funds, he should speak with her before the company took any further steps. They also told him that if the organizer didn't comply with the payment plan, he could then file a claim under their Beneficiary Guarantee. Oliver questions why the company would make him responsible for recovering the funds — especially from someone who'd already demonstrated that she wasn't trustworthy. "I just think that's unacceptable because they have all the proof that the organizer has misused the funds," he said. "And the onus shouldn't be on myself to trust the organizer for a payment plan." Liability issues Oliver says his focus now is on the actions taken by the fundraising platform itself. "I think GoFundMe has handled this poorly, to be honest," he said. He wants to know why the company didn't flag an irregularity when he reached out to them in March about dispersing the remainder of the funds, especially if they knew the money had been withdrawn months early. "That should have flagged something within their internal investigation or fraud team to say, 'Hey, this guy is the intended beneficiary and he's saying that he hasn't received the money,' " said Oliver. There have been other high-profile instances of money from GoFundMe campaigns being misused. After the 2018 Humboldt Broncos tragedy, a man was sentenced to jail in part for setting up a GoFundMe for the victims, then depositing the funds into his own bank account and spending the money. The challenge, according to one legal expert, is that it can be difficult to hold companies like GoFundMe liable when donations are misused because it would have to be proven that the company was aware the funds were going to be misappropriated before they were released. "If you knew, or you should have known, that the funds were not being used for the intended purpose, then you would have liability," said Tanya Walker, a Toronto-based lawyer who has handled many fraud cases. To try to prevent misuse of funds, Walker says GoFundMe could consider alternative measures — such as ensuring the funds are deposited directly into the account of the intended beneficiary, or introducing a third-party guarantor in instances where the organizer is raising funds for another person. 'A huge gap' In Oliver's case, a GoFundMe spokesperson told CBC News that the company had "removed the fundraiser, and the organizer's account has been banned from using our platform for any future fundraisers." More broadly, the spokesperson said, "beneficiaries are protected by the GoFundMe Beneficiary Guarantee, which offers protection in the rare case that an Organizer does not deliver funds to the intended recipients of a fundraiser." But Oliver says that's not good enough, and that he doesn't believe he should have been asked to enforce a payment plan before becoming eligible for support from GoFundMe. He says more needs to be done to prevent something like this from happening again. "I think this is a huge gap in their systems and their policies of how to actually ensure money is being sent to the intended recipient," Oliver said.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Federal grant cuts have a big impact on New Mexico nonprofits, new report finds
May 24—New Mexico nonprofits are particularly reliant on federal dollars, so federal funding freezes have had a dramatic impact in the state, according to a new report commissioned by three New Mexico foundations. It is typical for funding patterns to change to align with a new presidential administration's priorities. But the Trump administration has paused or canceled an unusually wide range of already approved federal grants — at times grant funds that have already been partially spent and were awarded by Congress — because they do not comply with its agenda. That includes money for scientific research, dollars meant to help ranchers make their operations more efficient, and arts program funding. Approximately 37% of nonprofits in New Mexico rely on government grants, according to the nonpartisan report commissioned by Santa Fe Community Foundation, Thornburg Foundation and Anchorum Health Foundation and authored by The Grant Plant Inc. To replace federal dollars that have been eliminated nationwide, private foundations would have to increase giving by 282%, the report found. "This kind of constant change is creating deep, deep uncertainty for a lot of nonprofits," said Allan Oliver, president of the Thornburg Foundation. A survey of 200 nonprofits operating in New Mexico found that 20% got at least half of their funding from federal grants. The sectors most reliant on these federal dollars were education, youth and family services, housing and environmental organizations. Organizations are especially concerned about receiving the payouts for already obligated funds, the report found. In New Mexico, 54% of federal dollars for active grant awards have been paid out, meaning close to half could be withheld or canceled. 'Tough decisions' New Mexico nonprofits are rapidly adapting to the shifting grant landscape, the report says. The survey found that 89% of organizations surveyed are developing contingencies to operate without federal grants. "Private philanthropy can never replace federal funding, but well applied investments can make a significant difference," the report says. Quivira Coalition is one of the nonprofits that lost federal grants. The organization, focused on regenerative agriculture, lost its largest grant, a $3.9 million Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities. The funds were frozen in late January, and the nonprofit was notified the grant would be terminated in April, said Interim Executive Director Leah Ricci. The five-year contract began in 2023 and was focused on helping livestock producers take waste products such as carcasses or livestock waste, and turn them into something like compost to improve soil health. The original goal was to enroll 50 livestock producers; when the grant was frozen 13 livestock producers hailing from New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado were enrolled. The Biden-era program was overhauled into a new Advancing Markets for Producers initiative, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in April. "It became clear that the majority of these projects had sky-high administration fees which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers," said a USDA news release. Some projects from the canceled grants were automatically enrolled in the new program, if they committed at least 65% of federal funds and directly paid to producers. Other projects can reapply. Quivera is unlikely to reapply for the grant, Ricci said. "One of the issues is that USDA is not allowing any other types of producer support to be included in the calculation towards that 65%, and so there's all sorts of other support that we provide, like providing producers with grazing management, technical assistance or marketing support," Ricci said. Instead, Quivera is moving forward with a revised version of the project, supporting the 13 already enrolled producers with funding from donors and foundation supporters. The nonprofit is grateful to have diverse income, allowing it to work without the federal dollars, but Ricci thinks some of the smaller, more community driven nonprofits may have trouble continuing their work without the federal dollars. "I have talked with a few foundation funders who have said very candidly that they're having to make tough decisions about, do I give this $50,000 to this organization that really critically needs it, knowing that that organization might not make it through this year? Or do I have to make the hard choice to pull back and give that money to someone else because we're worried about organizations not existing beyond this year?" Ricci said.
