GoFundMe shut down this fundraising campaign for violating their terms, in particular "Prohibited conduct".

https://www.gofundme.com/c/terms

I don't have any more details from GFM, but my guess is that the description wasn't clear enough, or just didn't vibe with their work.

In the setup for a campaign they say you can raise funds to distribute to others, but I guess this particular case rings alarm bells.

Anyway, please check below for ways to help out!

UPDATE: they don't allow giving grants.

Here's what I sent to GFM:

So, can I talk to someone about what happened here?

I’m an Open Source software developer and community leader. I was trying to raise funds to support some of the great Black-led projects in my area of software development (federated social networking).

At sign-up, it said I could find people to give funds to; it didn’t have to be defined at the beginning.

I was surprised to see the fund shut down.

[cont'd...]

[...]

Is there something I could change to make this campaign suitable for GoFundMe? Or am I banned from the platform now?

Here's what they sent back!

'GoFundMe cannot process payments for "annuities, investments, equity or lottery contracts, lay-away systems, off-shore banking or similar transactions, money transfer services (including currency exchanges, check cashing or the like), debt collection or crypto-currencies."'

[cont'd]

This includes using GoFundMe for investors to contribute to a business or for any venture that offers a return on investment.

Additionally, GoFundMe donations cannot be treated as loans and organizers cannot offer to pay back their donors.

The only thing I can think of is that the last two paragraphs of the description (same as the start of this thread) are like: give some money if you have it, ask for money if you need it.

That might have triggered their idea that this was some kind of sneaky financial scam.