An online fundraising platform designed in Vancouver is raising thousands of dollars for the legal defence of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
On Thursday, February 3, the Julian Assange Defense Fund started a campaign using Fundrazr, a Facebook-based fundraising tool developed by Vancouver’s ConnectionPoint Systems Inc.
As of this morning, Assange’s defence team had raised more than $13,000 from over 230 donors in North America and Europe.
In an interview with Business in Vancouver, Daryl Hatton, ConnectionPoint’s president and CEO, said that Assange’s legal defence team decided to use Fundrazr because they saw its potential to distribute its message and legally solicit funds from Facebook users.
Anyone can create his or her own fundraising page with the app, which people can share on Facebook. “When they share the campaign, it shows up on your wall on Facebook and actually runs the campaign badge,” said Hatton. “You can make a donation straight from the news feed.”
Donations are processed through PayPal, so all transactions are secured through the third-party payment processor.
While WikiLeaks had been cut off from using PayPal in December, Hatton noted Assange isn’t violating any terms of use because the funds are being used for Assange’s legal defence, not for WikiLeaks.
“[PayPal] is aware of it; they’re not going to stop it. This is the kind of thing that our product does, raising money for personal campaigns as well as non-profits.”
While Assange’s campaign is Fundrazr’s highest profile, Hatton downplayed its significance for the company.
“Its high profile, but I don’t think it will be the largest for volume over time,” he said. “We have raised more than $1.3 million for our customers since last summer, and we’ll do $400,000 this month.”
BIV recently wrote about Fundrazr’s potential for non-profit organizations in its annual White Edition supplement focused on philanthropy (See “Campaigns that click” -issue 1103; Dec.14-20, 2010).