Our Founding Story: Hurricane Harvey Response

When Hurricane Harvey tore through Texas and the southern United States, it left behind more than $125 billion in damage and thousands of people wondering how they would begin to rebuild.

In the days that followed, people turned to GoFundMe in overwhelming numbers. Families needed help with shelter, repairs, transportation, food, and the everyday costs that appear all at once after a disaster. At the same time, donors were looking for a trusted, tax-deductible way to help.

That moment of need is what led to the founding of GoFundMe.org.

GoFundMe.org launched quickly with a central relief fund for Hurricane Harvey survivors, providing unrestricted cash grants to verified individuals asking for help. The need was urgent, and the response had to be just as fast. By leveraging GoFundMe’s Trust & Safety verification processes, GoFundMe.org quickly discovered its superpower: getting financial help directly to verified people in the earliest days of recovery, often before other forms of aid become available.

In that first response, GoFundMe.org granted roughly $700,000 to more than 800 households impacted by the storm. As the need continued, GoFundMe.org also worked with donors to establish a donor-advised fund that raised more than $1 million for charities serving affected communities.

What began in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey became the foundation for everything GoFundMe.org would go on to do: meet people in their most urgent moments, move quickly to support them, and trust survivors with the flexible support they need to begin again.