Crowdfunding site GiveSendGo restarts Canadian trucker fund dropped by GoFundMe, quickly raises $1m

The upstart crowdfunding website GiveSendGo on Saturday restarted a funding drive in support of the Canadian trucker protests, quickly raising a massive $1 million just hours after the fund was dropped by the larger platform GoFundMe.

GoFundMe had cancelled the funding drive after it had raised a whopping $10 million, claiming that the protest itself had turned into a violent "occupation" and that it violated the company's terms of service.

The newly launched GiveSendGo funding drive — promoted on and supported by the alternative social media website CloutHub — was asking for donations for the truckers to "help with the costs of fuel first, and hopefully food and lodgings to help ease the pressures of this arduous task," according to the fund's page. 

GiveSendGo's website had been experiencing technical difficulties for much of Saturday morning, which the company said in a tweet was the result of "heavy DDoS and bot attacks."

"In spite of all of this," the company continued, "we still have managed to raise funds 5X faster than the [GoFundMe] did. GFM raised 10mil in 3 weeks. [GiveSendGo] campaign has already raised over 1.1mil in just over 12 hours!"

The truckers themselves are engaged in a protracted protest against Canada's border vaccine mandate and COVID restriction laws.