The Daily Signal - BONUS | ‘The Anti-Defamation League Defamed Us,’ GiveSendGo Co-Founder Says

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Heather Wilson, co-founder of the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, told The Daily Signal that the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish legal advocacy group, smeared her organization. “The Anti-Defamation League defamed us [without] having any facts behind it,” Wilson said, emphasizing the word in an interview Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. She said the organization was referring to alleged extremists “who are raising funds for legal fees, because we allow that on GiveSendGo, because we allow it in the United States of America.” The Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, did not respond to The Daily Signal‘s request for comment. Wilson, whose organization allows individuals to raise funds for a wide variety of peaceful and legal causes, faulted ADL for putting out “a hit piece on GiveSendGo,” referring to a January report titled “How Bigots and Extremists Collect and Use Millions in Online Donations.” “It said GiveSendGo was the main crowdfunder of these extremist terrorist groups and they quoted some numbers, however many millions of dollars have been raised by extremist terrorist groups on GiveSendGo, but they don’t quote any [specific] campaigns,” Wilson said. “So they might put like one or two and if you click on the campaigns they’re quoting, there’s like $400 or $250.” Wilson said ADL never reached out to GiveSendGo for comment. “What it comes down to, they never reached out to us,” she recalled. “Usually if you’re going to put a piece out on somebody, you want to get the other’s opinion or some talking points or, ‘What do you think?’ Give us a chance.” Wilson joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the work of GiveSendGo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Anti-Defamation League defamed us with not having any facts behind it. This is a Daily Signal bonus episode for Friday, March 3rd. I'm Tyler O'Neill. And that was Heather Wilson, co-founder of GivesendGo. We spoke with her about the Anti-Defamation League's attack against Givesendgo. What Givesendgo is the crowdfunding platform and how it operates and how it helps the people of East Palestine. So stay tuned for my conversation with Heather Wilson after this. As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas.

Bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics. But here's something I've come to understand. When faced with bad ideas, it's not enough to just defend. If we want to save this country, then it's time to go on offense. Conservative principles are ideas that work, individual responsibility, strong local communities, and belief in the American dream. As a former college professor and current president of the Heritage Foundation, my life's mission is to learn, educate, and take action. My podcast, The Kevin Roberts Show, is my opportunity to share that journey with you. I'll be diving into the critical issues that plague our nation, having deep conversations with high-profile guests, some of whom may surprise you, and I want

to ensure freedom for the next generation. Find the Kevin Roberts Show. wherever you get your podcast. This is Tyler O'Neill, a managing editor at The Daily Signal. I'm here with Heather Wilson, the co-founder of Give Send Go. We were just talking briefly about the attacks that Give Send Go. Well, first off, let's explain what Gives and Go is before we get into how the left has been attacking you. Sure. Well, thanks for talking with me, Tyler, today. Gives and Go was started about eight years ago by a brother and sister and myself.

as a alternative to sites like GoFundMe, where people were coming together, raising money. It was a great idea. As Christians, we were like, this is perfect. That's what we should be doing is when we see a need coming together and helping people. And so we started Gives and Goh just as a place where we said, we're going to allow people to raise money for what's important and what their needs are, but we're also going to share hope with people while they're fundraising.

And so Gives and Go was born, and we started walking it out for years and watching some growth happen. And then a few years ago, we were thrust into a national spotlight for allowing some campaigns that other tech companies said that shouldn't be allowed to have a voice. And we scratched our head and said, this is kind of bizarre that a young man named Kyle Rittenhouse isn't being allowed to tell his side of the story. What happened to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? And what was the fundraising for in his case? It was for legal defense. So either you believe that raising money for legal defense shouldn't happen,

and only wealthy people that already have the money should have legal representation. That they want. Or you allow people, and I can tell you 100 times over, that if you are a pedophile and you actually are a creep, that you try to raise funds for your legal defense, no one's going to give you money because you're a creep. The only time we see legal defenses take off is when there's, another side to the story, and people believe there might be another side that the media is not

telling us, and we're seeing that again and again. And so what happened with Kyle? He wasn't allowed on any platform, shut down from everything. We allowed him on Gives and Go. He raised, I want to say, $600,000 or more, and a year and a half later, he got found not guilty in a court of law. And people were like, we're so glad you stood behind Kyle, and we said we didn't stand behind Kyle. We didn't know if he was innocent or guilty. We saw what the world saw on social media. It's not our job to decide if someone's innocent or guilty in the United States. You have the right to a defense. And so that spurred us into this, oh, we don't follow the rules of all the big tech. And we've grown significantly because we allow people, even that we disagree with, to raise money

on give Zango. Well, and that reminds me. I mean, I wrote a book about this organization called the Southern Poverty Law Center. And they started out, by doing similar things to what you just described, representing poor people in the South who didn't have legal representation. A lot of cases, these are poor people, sometimes they're black people who are falsely accused of things. And the Southern Poverty Law Center had these wonderful wins where they stepped into the breach and paid for legal representation

and got people off of death row who were falsely accused and falsely convicted of rape and of other things like that. But then over the years, the SPLC, as many of these organizations have, pushed more in a left-wing direction and actually started going after conservative organizations, branding them hate groups. And I mean, the ADL, both the SPLC and the ADL have attacked GiveSN Go. Would you discuss a little bit of how that happened? Sure. It's fascinating that, again, these two organizations that have such potential to do great things, in the world, right? They started with good motives.

They started with, hey, we want to help here. And then through their actions, they've totally discredited themselves for any good that they could do. I wouldn't trust either one. As far as I could, for as much as good they might have done in the past, I wouldn't trust them because their actions have been outrageous.

So recently, the ADL put out a hit piece on Gives and Go saying, it was on crowdfunding, but it said Gives and Go was the main crowd funder of these extremist terrorist groups and over, you know, they quoted some numbers, however many millions of dollars have been raised by extremist terrorist groups on gives and go, but they don't quote any necessary campaign. So they might put like one or two, and if you click on the campaigns they're quoting, there's like $400 or $250. Like it's not like millions of dollars being raised and so you're going, wait. So how did you get this many million? And what it comes

down to. They never reached out to us. Usually if you're going to put a piece out on somebody, you want to get the other's opinion or some talking points or what do you think? Give us a chance. They didn't. They put this thing out claiming all these sorts of things. The Anti-Defamation League defamed us with not having any facts behind it. They were taking people who are raising funds for legal fees because we allow that on give and go, because we allow it in the United States of America. They say because we allow people that have done, maybe done something bad, maybe not, but because we allow them the right to raise funds for their legal defense, we didn't let them raise money to go do something bad.

We're allowing them to defend themselves that we are allowing extremist terrorists on our platform. And it's just not true unless you want to call everybody that wants to get a good defense when they found themselves on the wrong side of the law, an extremist terrorist. And we can't do that with the presumption of innocence that is supposed to take place in the United States. I also want to talk about some of the recent campaigns that you've been running with GIF and Go. You have one focused on aid to East Palestine in the wake of this horrific disaster, this train wreck, that allegedly spewed chemicals that might be harming people. How is GIFSeng Go stepping into the breach there?

Well, these are the stories we like to talk about, because this is, This is what we're about, is finding people in need and stepping in and providing help and hope. We say often, help and hope go together, right? They go hand in hand. So about a year and a half ago, we started a nonprofit called Gives and Go Charities. And our nonprofit branch is made just for situations like these. When there's a national or worldwide disaster and we want to step in and help, the charities can step in, immediately create a campaign and start raising money.

And people can know that 100% of their donation on our charities is going to whoever is in trouble. And so with the East Palestine, we saw what happened. Our charity executive director stepped in and said, I'm creating a campaign. 100% of your donation. If you give $100, $100 will go to the people on the ground in East Palestine. That's unheard of. The way we are able to do that is that gives and go, the for-profit, our crowdfunding platform, covers the processing fees, covers our staff over there.

And so all the money that is donated goes to the people on the ground. If somebody has a campaign on gives and go personally for East Palestine, they can actually, the charity will give a grant to them from the money given. And we've watched this campaign explode. Last I looked was like at $60,000. People are so upset the government hasn't stepped in. And in some ways, I get that. But the other ways I say, the government wasn't made to do this.

I want less government. You know, it's such a mess right now. What gives and go is intended for is for people to come together when there's a need and help each other as human beings. And we see that again and again. When there's a house fire in someone's neighborhood, people aren't going, well, you're a Republican or Democrat or independent. I'm not going to give.

People at the heart of it come together when things are hard. needs and that's what gives and go is all about it's not about extremists unless you want to say it is probably pretty extreme in today's culture to care about other people over yourself and that's what we foster our gives and go so does give send go have you know you've you've mentioned limits you're not going to help fundraise for acts of violence for terrorism for things like that but what you know where where is the boundary there and I understand understand that's a complicated question. It is a complicated question.

It's probably our most asked question, and it's something that we don't take lightly, and we feel passionate about as we discuss it as a team. Because we don't want to infringe on people's freedoms that were bought at a high price, but we also aren't going to just want, we don't want bad people on the site. So obviously fraud, if you're raising money

and you're not raising money, and you're a fraudster trying to steal people's credit cards, we're not going to allow that. 100%, you can't. if somebody is labeled a terrorist, then they're not allowed to use the banking system in the United States of America, or whatever their country,

we're in 86 countries, so whatever country they're in, then they can't use gifts and go. And so if they've been labeled this, we can't allow them if they're not allowed to use the banking system. So that kind of takes that out of our hands as far as terrorists, people on terror watch lists. Like, there's nothing we can do.

There are two other caveats that we've settled on, and not to say this is the end-all, be-all of forever this, is what we're going to do. But in this journey, the two things that we have said that we will not allow people to fundraise for. Obviously, we're not going to allow people to fundraise for murder. You can't go, and they sound like you want to chuckle, of course. You can't go and say, I'm going to go kill my neighbor. They're annoying, right?

You just can't do that. But we also believe that a baby in the womb is a child, and so you can't raise funds for abortion on gives and go. There are other platforms, but we believe in the sanctity of life, and we are not going to allow you to raise money for murder. Do you raise funds for pregnancy centers? We have lots of people raising funds for pregnancy centers, which I think that's the way to help women. Give them the options, come beside them, let them know they're not alone.

Because most women don't want to kill a baby in their womb. They feel hopeless and helpless. And we want to help with that need there. And then the other caveat that we have is that we, and it's funny because we just label it, we don't allow child abuse. Now, obviously people go, of course you're not going to allow child abuse. I can't say that I'm going to buy a lock so I can lock my kids in the closet. You know, and I'm a foster mom, and I actually took kids in five siblings that were locked in closets and tased and horrific situation. And so we go, we're not going to allow child abuse.

No, everybody knows you're not going to be allowed to say I'm going to hurt my kids. But we also say we're not going to allow an adult to raise funds to transition their child because that is child abuse. Yeah. Now, if it's a 25-year-old and they go, oh, I want to. on a transition and they come to Give Sen Go, which why would they choose Give Sengo except to make a point? But if they came to Give Sen Go, we would allow them. Because you know what?

Our first team that we hired on Give Zengo was a prayer team. And every campaign that gets started on Gives and Go gets a call from one of our prayer partners that says, hey, I see that your husband was in a car accident. Can I just pray with you right now? Hey, I see that your daughter has cancer. Can I pray with you right now? Hey, I see your transitioning.

And you don't feel like you're worth anything. Like you feel like God created you wrong. Well, I just want to let you know that he loves you just the way you are. And we hear story after story after story of people going, because you don't have to be a Christian to come on and give them and go. You don't have to believe in God, prayer, anything. But most people, if you ask them, do you want? Can I pray for you?

Can I pray for you? Can I pray with you? They'll say yes. Absolutely. Even if they don't believe. Atheists are like bawling on the phone going, I just can't believe you're the only one who reach out. Or I was sitting in my house all alone going,

I don't know how I'm going to make it through today. I buried my son yesterday and that you would call me in this moment. I just don't get this, right? And we had a woman once that our prayer partner called. She had started a campaign for her daughter. I'd committed suicide. And she was just beside herself. And when our prayer partner called, she said,

I just pulled out my gun and I was going to end it. I just was like so hopeless. And our prayer partner was able to talk with her and pray with her. And then we followed up. to make sure she had a network of people that she could, you know, that could step into her life. And that's why we do what we do at Gives and Go. Don't believe everything you read on these other sites that wanted to fame us. Our whole goal is to share the hope of Jesus while people crowdfund to a hopeless generation

that feels like there's no truth. There's no truth. There is truth. Well, and you said that, you know, Gives and Goe has the foundation and then it has the for-profit side. What kind of cut does GIFSENGo take? Is that clear going in if you're starting a campaign? Sure. So Gives and Go is actually a free platform.

So we don't take a cut. There is our processor who we actually are covering part of those processing fees because the normal online processing is 2.9 plus 30 cents. That's kind of across the board if you're going to online do... Right, for credit card fees, et cetera, yeah. What Gives and Go did starting this year, say we're gonna actually cover 0.2% of that, so it's 2.7 on gives and go.

So we're cheaper than our competitors, because we're like, no, we're gonna cover some of this to allow people to receive more of the money that is raised. And then we don't- Do you run ads? No, so how we make money? Yeah, exactly. That sounds like a really bad business model.

How are you making money? Very early on, we decided that we were going to allow the giver to choose an optional donation to give San Go if they wanted to. Rather than taking from the person who needed the money, let's ask the person who has the money if they want to give. And so when they say, I'm going to give $100 to this campaign, hey, here's a suggested amount, but there's a drop-down. You can change it to nothing.

You can pick any number. And it's working. People are so thankful that there's a platform like Gives and Go that will stand for their freedoms, that we're seeing that people, it's working. Oh, that's amazing. Is there anything else? else you'd like to add while we have you?

Well, I just want to again, thank you for taking time, listening to us talk. You know, I could talk about gifts and go, tell you stories for days. Really what I want to say to people is don't support those. When some, you see another site censoring, and I don't even want to mention their name, when you see other sites censoring, don't visit those sites. Don't give them the time of day. When you see someone using those sites, say, sorry, I only want to mention. give on gives and go.

We're seeing that on Twitter. Jordan Peterson started a GoFundMe and posted it on Twitter. And hundreds of people were like, I'm not giving unless you move to give Zengo. Because people are saying I'm not going to support the sites, no matter how good the cause, I'm not going to support a site that is going to ultimately be against me. And so that's my challenge to people is when you see somebody using an inferior site, tell them, hey, this This one's cheaper. Like, less processing fees.

They'll pray with you. They won't censor you. It's a no-brainer. So use Gives and Go. Share the people. It's because of your listeners that we have become the top freedom crowdfunding site in the world. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us again, Heather.

Wilson, co-founder of GIFS and Go. Well, thank you again, Tyler. I'm sure we'll talk in the future. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day.

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