Millions in donations pledeged for victims; where will the money go?
When tragedy struck Las Vegas on Sunday, community members, elected officials and corporations alike stepped up not only with their hearts and labor, but their pocketbooks.
More than $14 million in donations have been pledged to the victims of Sunday’s massacre per crowdsourcing sites like Gofundme as well as direct individual contributions. On Sunday evening, gunman Stephen Paddock fatally wounded 58 attendees at a country music festival from his 32nd-floor room at Mandalay Bay.
Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak and Sheriff Joe Lombardo established the Las Vegas Victims’ Fund on the Gofundme website. In less than 72 hours, the fund received more than $9 million in pledges from more than 70,000 individual donors, including a $3 million gift from MGM Resorts International. Zappos, UFC and Station Casinos all pledged $1 million separate of the fund. Las Vegas Sands also announced establishment of a $4 million fund for victims.
Sisolak said dispersal of the funds would be overseen by the National Center for Victims of Crime, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group that performed a similar role in the wake of last year’s mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The nonprofit’s fund for mass shootings, called the National Compassion Fund, also played a similar role distributing funds in the wake of deadly events in Aurora, Colo., and Chattanooga, Tenn.
Sisolak said he was only in charge of raising the money and that the county would have “absolutely no role” in where it is distributed after that. All Sisolak can do is identify and refer areas of highest need to the National Compassion Fund.
“All I do is raise money and then I’m out of it,” Sisolak said. “But we want them to know this was made for major things, not replacement of backpacks or stuff
Beyond Sisolak’s collections, families and friends of individual victims have also raised money through Gofundme, Crowdrise and other crowdsourcing sites.