WHEN all about you seems chaos it makes sense to use any tool possible to reassert control, no matter how superficial. It must be this - a need for order - that goes partly towards explaining the phenomenon of the post-disaster fundraising page.
In the past, I’d say, two years it has become ubiquitous for a Go Fund Me or a JustGiving page to be set up in the wake of a sudden death.
It’s often surprising what sparks the public’s interest, how some campaigns generate £120,000 and others £12. Some remain local efforts, limited to donations from family and friends, to pay towards funeral costs and headstones.
Others go global. An online fundraising page for Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Shah, murdered last year at his convenience store in the city’s Shawlands area, raised more than £100,000 in a relatively short space of time.
When the teenager Paige Doherty was murdered in Clydebank, an online fundraising drive raised more than £13,000 in less than 24 hours.
This desire to offer support has spilled into fiction: Archers fan Paul Trueman set up a JustGiving page calling for donations to the domestic abuse charity Refuge following a story line on the BBC Radio 4 drama in which Helen Titchener was abused by her husband. It has raised £172,475.
Similarly, an online fundraising page has been founded in response to the rape plotline on Broadchurch. It has so far raised a more modest £6200 but donations are steadily rising.
These online fundraisers quickly become the story, they are a gift for reporters. Not only do they give a follow up story, often friends and relatives leave tributes to the deceased that draw a picture of the victim as a person. This extra publicity for the pages goes some way to helping them become more visible and so more lucrative.
It’s incredible, all this kindness from strangers. But, firstly, victims’ families should not be relying on the kindness of strangers. And, secondly, there is no regulation overseeing what is actually happening to all this money. Once the money has been handed to the family - what then? How do we know for what purpose it is being used? Do we care? Is it even reaching the families it is supposed to support?
In England, calls have been made to both have fundraising sites do more to protect users and to have the Fundraising Regulator assume responsibility for overseeing activity on these platforms.
The calls come in the wake of the Westminster terrorist attack. Around a dozen pages were set up to generate money for victims’ families. One, that had raised £17,000 ostensibly in memory of victim Aysha Frade, was seized by JustGiving when donors recognised the name of the fundraiser as that of a woman convicted of fraud.
Meanwhile, in Scotland, lack of coordinated support for victims has been raised as a real issue. Bea Jones, the mother of murdered businesswoman Moira Jones, met this week with justice secretary Michael Matheson to discuss with him the lack of joined up care for families of murder victims. Mrs Jones founded The Moira Fund, which gives financial support to families who find themselves in the same horrifying situation the Joneses found themselves.
In England, families are linked with a dedicated Homicide Case Worker [HCW] who stays with them for 12 to 18 months to liaise with all involved parties - from police to funeral directors and social services. In Scotland there is no such support and Mrs Jones also says there is not enough money in the Victim Support Scotland’s (VSS) victim fund for families of murder victims.
Donating in the wake of a sudden death is an emotive response but perhaps, while fundraising pages flourish unchecked, encouraging donations to reputable charities that support victims would be sensible.
At the same time, regulation is vital. Otherwise, we are leaving kind spirited members of the public, looking to bring humanity to an inhumane situation, at risk of becoming victims themselves.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here