GoFundMe will refund more than $20 million in donations made by hundreds of thousands of people to an online effort to build President Trump's border wall with Mexico, after the Iraq War veteran behind the crowdsourcing effort suddenly changed his plans Friday on what to do with the funds.

In an update to the "We the People Will Build the Wall" campaign, Brian Kolfage wrote that rather than donating the money raised to the federal government, it would instead be handed over to a private nonprofit he said he had established in order to construct a wall himself.

"The federal government won’t be able to accept our donations anytime soon," he wrote. "We are better equipped than our own government to use the donated funds to build an actual wall on the southern border."

When he first created the campaign in mid-December, Kolfage had set an ambitious $1 billion goal for the crowdsourcing effort and pledged to refund all the money himself if the target was not met, according to an internet archive. "100% of your donations will go to the Trump Wall," Kolfage wrote. "If for ANY reason we don't reach our goal we will refund your donation.” The language was later removed from the fundraiser page.



"However, that did not happen," GoFundMe spokesperson Bobby Whithorne told BuzzFeed News in an email after Kolfage changed the campaign's original promise. "This means all donors will receive a refund."

"If a donor does not want a refund," Whithorne continued, "and they want their donation to go to the new organization, they must proactively elect to redirect their donation to that organization. If they do not take that step, they will automatically receive a full refund."

Kolfage didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, but Jennifer Lawrence, a spokesperson for the new campaign, disputed the characterization that donors were being refunded.