Hours after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the first major crowdfunding campaign was launched to support his family.

It was quickly joined by others, some to support his family, others to continue his work, and still others planning ways to memorialize their fallen hero.

Nearly 100,000 donations have poured in, and by Monday, a day after Kirk was laid to rest, roughly $10 million had been raised on two major crowdfunding platforms, GiveSendGo and GoFundMe.

Kirk’s detractors have been active, too.

A wave of firings of people who mocked or otherwise denigrated Kirk’s death, or life, sent people rushing to crowdsourcing platforms to seek money to fight their legal battles, or to pay bills until they found another paycheck.

Among them is Kaylee Rollo, who set up a campaign for herself and her sibling Kerri after they were identified in a caught-on-tape moment showing someone smashing a Kirk memorial on the steps of the courthouse in Bentonville, Arkansas. Both now face vandalism charges.

“My sibling and I were arrested for this protest. We have been threatened, doxxed, harassed and fired. Please consider donating for legal counsel and court fees,” Kaylee Rollo wrote.

Her campaign, which she called the “Fight Against F4scism,” had raised nearly $6,000 from 183 donations.

Donors have ponied up nearly $18,000 for Gerald Bourguet, who was fired from his job covering the Phoenix Suns basketball team by PHNX Sports after calling Kirk an “evil man” and among the “bigots spreading genocidal propaganda.”

Even more successful was Kimberly Hunt, who had raised more than $80,000 from 2,600 donations as of Monday.

The Arizona woman labeled her campaign “doxxed, fired but not silenced.” She said in online posts that she was let go by her employer because of a backlash over her Kirk criticism. She asked for money “to help me stay afloat while I get back on my feet.”

Less successful was Briana Trace, who said she was fired for her “beliefs on the Charlie Kirk assignation.” She set a $3,000 fundraising goal, saying she was a single mother who needed money to provide for her two children, but five days in, she didn’t have any donations.

Jeremy Snyder, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada who studies crowdfunding campaigns, said crowdfunding donations serve as a form of political expression for some people, though he cautioned against judging relative support for the two sides based on the totals raised.

For one thing, he said, the reach of the people organizing a campaign can make a difference in exposure.

And Kirk’s supporters come from some big names.

Conservative media figure Tucker Carlson and his nicotine pouch company Alp donated $1 million to kick off one of the GiveSendGo campaigns. As of Monday, it had collected more than $5.4 million from more than 46,000 donations.

Turning Point USA’s official fundraiser for the Kirk family has topped $2.3 million in donations. The Liberty Memes Foundation, which was first out of the block just after Kirk’s death was confirmed, was nearing the $1 million mark as of Monday afternoon.

“Rest easy, Charlie, and know you have changed the world,” wrote one donor who gave $100 to that campaign.

Mr. Snyder, in his research, looked at legal crowdfunding campaigns and found that those touching on politically charged issues greatly outperformed others.

“There is research that tapping into people’s emotions can support crowdfunding success, including encouraging people to give as an expression of these emotions or a political viewpoint. Media coverage helps too, which would favor campaigns linked to current events. Similarly, these campaigns may be more likely to be shared online as a form of political expression,” he said.

Those same factors appear to be at play in the Kirk-related campaigns, too.

GoFundMe said it was working to verify all the Kirk-related campaigns on its platform to make sure the money goes where it’s supposed to.

“Our hearts go out to the Kirk family and everyone impacted by this tragedy,” a spokesperson said.

GiveSendGo didn’t respond to an inquiry for this story.

The money raised for Kirk, while impressive, is far from record territory.

The George Floyd Memorial Fund raised money from more than half a million, collecting nearly $15 million.

On the conservative side, We Build the Wall, run by Trump supporters and billed as a way for private citizens to pay for border wall construction, raised $25 million before organizers were hit with federal fraud charges.

Among active campaigns, a GiveSendGo for Luigi Mangione, the man accused in the slaying last December of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is nearing $1.3 million.

And a GoFundMe for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the illegal immigrant battling the Trump administration over his deportation, was up to $275,000 as of Monday.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.