Crip Fund is pooling money for chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised people in serious financial need during this ongoing time of love, coronavirus, and apocalyptic joy & pain.
About
They say COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate, but we know sick and disabled people are disproportionately affected by pandemics and public health crises long before and well after corona. Officials say people will die, but we say we aren’t dead yet. When anyone (and what right now can feel like everyone) says it’s only the old and unhealthy who are dying, we say stop racist-eugenics now. Much love to all life!
With your support we’re hoping to support your real hope of collective care. In recognition that disabled people’s self care is already collective, that auto/immunity is already an entire herd, and in sickness beyond every notion of health we already care in and for communities in the face of ongoing infrastructural failure. We are your infrastructural frailure and killing us (or “letting us die”) for the healthy’s protection just isn’t a good look.
The funds raised will be distributed via venmo/paypal to those requesting money for goods, services, and sustaining measures during the impact of COVID-19 in the United States. In order to disburse funds quickly we will close our GoFundMe on Sunday April 5th.
Some of us are losing work due to the closings and coming up short on rent, food, meds, pay for care work, etc. Some of us never had a job in the first place and live off of disability income–which always comes up short. Some of us are stuck at home well before lockdown and some are still looking for housing. We know that ableism, American individualism, and racial global capital want us dead and will try to kill every single one of us. But we also know they can’t kill us all! The time is now. It was actually weeks ago but we were in bed. Still are. What we want is free but groceries, rent, and healthcare still aren’t. Please give if you are able, or share where you can, or just vibe something good.
With all kinds of love,
CRIP FUND
Give Funds
At this time, we are not accepting funds, but we encourage you to give funds to sick and disabled people through other channels. For example, ill bulletin.
Request Funds
Our form for requesting funds is currently closed. If you would like to be notified if the form reopens, please email us.
If your situation is pressing, please email us to discuss and we will do our best to meet your need or to connect you with someone else who possibly can meet your need now.
People
Crip fund is an ad-hoc care collective comprised of disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised people who are pooling funds for direct distribution to chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised people in serious financial need living in the United States during COVID-19.
This is a collective effort but because we don’t have a collective bank account, the funds will be deposited into a designated CRIP FUND account under one of the organizer’s names, Park McArthur. The funds will be disbursed from this account via Venmo and Paypal to self-identified chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised people who requested funds via our form.
Crip Fund is: Carolyn Lazard, Park McArthur, Constantina Zavitsanos, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Alejandra Ospina, Josephine Shokrian, Alice Sheppard, Jordan Lord, Shannon Finnegan, Taraneh Fazeli, Amalle Dublon, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and anonymous others. Special thanks to Akemi Nishida, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Tourmaline for their invaluable support in linking this fund to some of those who need it most right now.
Contact
Crip Fund is crip too so our communication may be slow.
Update 6/20/20
Hello beautiful crip community,
We are sending love and solidarity to you at home, in the streets, in bed, at work, and in our dreams of what worlds can come in the transformation of this one.
Over the past two months we have been working on dispersing funds raised via GoFundMe and Venmo and wanted to update you on our process. So far we have dispersed $49,900 to 116 crips across the US, with the bulk of the funds going out in late April after our money from GoFundMe arrived.
Our process
Building on the lessons learned and strategies created by countless other amazing mutual aid groups who figured out how to get around Venmo limits, we used a beehive distribution method. Three Crip Fund organizers were each sent $10,000 of our GoFundMe total via bank transfer. Each organizer then distributed funds via their personal Venmo/Paypal accounts. This method allowed for simultaneous and faster disbursement.
According to GoFundMe, we raised $56,925. $10,000 of that amount we believe to be a clerical error on the part of GoFundMe and are trying to sort that out with them. So most likely, our actual GoFundMe total is $46,925. We have also received ongoing donations via Venmo so currently we have a remaining balance of $8,636 ($5,000 of this was received in the last two weeks). We are working to disperse this as quickly as possible.
Get in touch
A very small number of requesters’ Venmo/Paypal accounts did not work. We have emailed folks to make alternative arrangements but have not heard back from everybody so a small amount of requests remain unmet If you are one of those people, email us! crip.fund@gmail.com We want to get you your requested money!
Our waitlist remains open via our email crip.fund@gmail.com. We are doing our best to answer ongoing requests as we receive them. If you are seeking funds via email please include a working Venmo and/or Paypal information (either yours or someone who can receive money on your behalf) and the amount you wish to receive (up to $500).
What’s next
We are now spending time as a group to rest, strategize, and dream how to best engage the shifting terrain of our world. We’re working towards a second round of Crip Fund and will keep you posted. Please check back for updates and/or get in touch in the meantime.
To all of the people who requested funds, thank you for working with us through this experimental process. We are so appreciative of your guidance and patience.
In disabled love and solidarity,
Crip Fund Crew
Update 4/23/20
Hello beloved community members,
Hope you are hanging in there in these perilous times. We wanted to give an update about the project, especially because many folks applied and have been waiting to hear back from us.
What’s happened is this: Like many people doing grassroots fundraisers during COVID times, we raised a significant amount of money, only to have GoFundMe ask for more documentation and put a lot of complicated hoops up that we had to jump through in order for them to release the funds to us. GoFundMe, like a lot of newer apps, has very limited or no emails/phone numbers for customer service, so resolving all these things was made even harder by the fact that we couldn’t get in touch with them directly to ask what the sticking points were.
We first requested our money on April 4th, and were asked for more documentation and paperwork from GoFundMe. We worked hard with them, and on Friday April 17, GoFundMe told us that we should receive the money within 2-5 business days. We received the money on Wednesday April 22 and are moving forward with distributing funds! Because of daily limits on transfers, we are able to get money to an average of 8-12 folks a day.
We received 117 requests for funds before we closed the fundraiser (to ensure that everyone could get the money they asked for). While waiting for the GoFundMe to clear, we were able to send money to a small number of people, because of a smaller amount of money we received in Venmo donations and some money that Crip Fund organizers were able to loan out of pocket. We prioritized sending money to people who were homeless, who were COVID patients in active medical crisis, or who had an immediate life or death need, like a medication without which they would die. We know everyone’s needs are crucial and figuring out who to prioritize is an imperfect process, but we wanted to get some money to some people as soon as possible.
We are now ready to disperse it to the rest of the applicants who are waiting. We have a plan to send funds from several folks’ personal Venmo or Paypal accounts in order to avoid Crip Fund’s account from being frozen or hitting the weekly limits the apps place on transfers. If we have your email, we will email you first to let you know you’re getting your money and whose Venmo/Paypal it will be coming from.
Thank you so much for bearing with us. We know that everyone is in dire straits, and it is really hard to have to wait for money. We are glad to be able to finally get money to people who need it as soon as possible.
In disabled love and solidarity,
Crip Fund Crew
Update 4/14/20
To everyone making this possible: Hello and love!
Our ongoing thanks to all who have supported this campaign, to everyone who took the time to fill out the form, and to the universe for making this possible!
We are winding down our campaign and as of today are no longer receiving donations via the GoFundMe platform.
We are currently awaiting GoFundMe’s release of Crip Fund’s campaign funds. If you wish to, please continue to donate via Crip Fund’s venmo and we can continue to get some initial emergency funds out quickly while we await GoFundMe.
Crip Fund’s venmo is @cripfund.
Once we receive the full campaign amount we will disperse it as quickly as we can just like we set out to do over a month ago!!
We are so happy to be at this point and are so grateful to you all.
We will keep this page live as a log of the campaign and as a way to get in touch: cripfund@gmail.com.
Much love,
Crip Fund
Update 4/5/20
Hello!
A brief update to thank everyone for supporting, requesting from, and donating to Crip Fund. Almost one month in to our campaign we are now winding it down and will be closing donations soon in order to transition to fulfilling requests. The Crip Fund gofundme page will remain live but we are asking that donations come to a close on this platform. If you would like to send donations after today, April 5th, please send them to @cripfund on venmo.
Our original goal was to begin distributing funds by April 5th, but our first day of dispersement will begin after the withdrawal process is complete. We have begun this process and will be in touch with those individuals who have sent requests for funds. Thank you to all who have submitted requests. The submission form remains closed as of 4/2/2020.
We will also continue to answer questions and inquiries by email. If you are waiting on a response to your email we thank you for your patience as we ourselves are also a group of crips.
Our boundless thanks to everyone making this possible.
With much love,
Crip Fund
Update 4/2/20
Hello all!
Due to overwhelming response we are now closing the request form.
We truly wish we could do more at this time. We have received more requests than we can fulfill and are now transitioning to answering these requests. Thank you so much for everyone who has gotten in touch with us.
We also have outstanding email messages and are working on replying to all.
We are sending love, fortitude, and appreciation for your patience.
Update 4/1/20
We are in our last week of funding and it’s time for an update!
THANK YOU:
With your overwhelming support, we quickly surpassed our goal of $20,000, and have updated our goal to $50,000, and we are more than halfway there! Thank you so much to everyone who has shouted us out, shared and linked to us, shown us love, given to the fund, and done all of this while caring for yourselves and friends, loved ones you know and don’t know, every single day.
Crip Fund is giving money to disabled* people during COVID-19. Crip Fund will privilege people who are immunocompromised and/or disabled* in need of in-home care; Queer/Trans/Black/Indigenous/People of Color (QTBIPOC) in financial need will be prioritized. We have already gotten a ton of inquiries and anticipate a huge response — we will do our best to answer each request and distribute in accordance with what we have been given.
We are getting ourselves set up to distribute amounts of $50, $100, $150, $200, or $500 via Paypal and Venmo. Venmo limits the total amount we can distribute a week to under $3000, so if you have Paypal, please give us that handle instead. We will continue to receive funds through Venmo @cripfund.
TO APPLY FOR FUNDS:
If you are crip in need, here is the Crip Fund request form: https://tinyurl.com/cripfundform
You will need to give a Paypal or Venmo handle in the United States to receive money.
On April 5th we will begin distributing funds.
NOTES:
Crip Fund is a group of disabled activists and has no connection to any government or non-profit organization. We will not share any information that you share here with any government or non-profit agencies.
*”Disabled” here is cross-disability cultures, and may include: those experiencing chronic illness, those on immunosuppressive meds, bone marrow or solid organ transplant recipients, inherited immunodeficiency, HIV, and other immunocompromised people, those with physical disabilities, cognitive disabilities, mental health disabilities, Autism, neurodiverse people, D/deaf, Blind, DeafBlind, and many more whether or not someone identifies with the word “disability” or is recognized as “disabled” by the Medical Industrial Complex.
*”Disabled” here does NOT include people with temporary injuries/illness—unless they are extensive to the point of not being able to get supplies, or unless they require ongoing in-home care for basic daily tasks such as bathing, getting dressed, using the bathroom, etc.
Please email us at cripfund@gmail.com if you have any questions; Crip Fund is crip too so our communication may be slow.
Thank you!
Crip Fund 