Crowd-Funding Draws Donations For Sandy Relief

In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, some who lost their homes or businesses have turned to crowd-funding websites to elicit a faster and more direct response than they could expect from the government or traditional charities.

While Congress considers a $60 billion disaster aid package for the storm victims, hundreds of them have gotten quicker results by creating personalized fundraising campaigns on sites including GoFundMe, IndieGoGo and HelpersUnite. These individual efforts have totaled a few million dollars — enough to show the funding model can work. GoFundMe leads the way with $1.3 million raised by about 320 individual campaigns from more than 14,000 donors.

Crowd-funded campaigns have also been started in recent days to benefit families affected by the school shooting that killed 26 in Connecticut, though those efforts are on a smaller scale than those that benefit the thousands hit by Sandy.