When Chris Abdur-Rahman Blauvelt of Dearborn heard about the attacks last week on two mosques in New Zealand that killed 50 worshippers, he knew he had to act.

As the CEO and co-founder of the Detroit-based LaunchGood — a crowdfunding platform similar to GoFundMe for the Muslim community — Blauvelt felt compelled to help the victims of one of the deadliest attacks in memory on Muslims by a white nationalist.

Working into early Friday morning with colleagues around the world, he helped set up a page for people to donate money to help the survivors and families of the victims.

In just one hour, the Muslim-led company helped raise $10,000 in New Zealand dollars, or more than $6,800 in U.S. dollars. In seven hours, they reached more than $68,000 in U.S. dollars.

On Friday afternoon, the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, tweeted a link to the campaign and donated $25,000, Blauvelt said. And then actress Alyssa Milano tweeted links to the LaunchGood campaign, urging supporters to donate, saying she would follow back on Twitter anyone who donated $50.

In just two days, more than $1 million was raised.

And by Wednesday, LaunchGood raised more than $1.62 million in U.S. dollars, greatly exceeding expectations. It's the most succcesful campaign since the company started in 2013 as a way to help the Muslim community.

"It's encouraging to see how many people have come together," Blauvelt told the Free Press. "After an event like this, you really feel helpless and you want to let the community know, you care about them, you have their back, they are not forgotten."

Donors come from all over the world

More than 36,000 donors from 120 countries have donated money so far, he said.

Blauvelt said the money will be distributed through Muslim groups on the ground in New Zealand, including the New Zealand Islamic Information Centre (NZIIC) and the Canterbury Muslim Community Trust. LaunchGood is also partnering with several other Muslim groups in New Zealand and in the U.S., including the Michigan Muslim Community Council.

Blauvelt said that NZIIC is close to the leader of one of the mosques that was attacked, Gamal Fouda.

Blauvelt was in New Zealand last year doing outreach work to spread LaunchGood and is working now to make sure the money is distributed properly.

"Our priority is making sure the donors' wishes are honored and the funds are responsibly and transparently dispersed," he said.

Established by Muslims in 2013, the startup LaunchGood has raised $69 million for thousands of campaigns, many of them oriented toward the Muslim community, but also aimed at other groups as well.

After the Pittsburgh synagogue attack in October, LaunchGood raised more than $238,000 for the families of the Jewish victims killed by a white supremacist.

LaunchGood said that for its donations, it collects a 5 percent platform fee along with a 3 percent credit card processing fee, which it said is standard for the industry. People who donate have the option of covering the 8 percent in fees when they check out. More than 70 percent do and so LaunchGood's average fees are 2.5 percent, the company said.

For the New Zealand campaign, however, the company is waiving platform fees not covered by donors.

In this campaign, "if they choose not to cover the fees, we're waiving those fees," Blauvelt said.

While the New Zealand effort is its most successful in terms of money raised and the number of donors, it's a bittersweet accomplishment because of the tragedy.

"I wish it never happened," Blauvelt said. "It's a horrible thing."

Responding to mosque attacks in New Zealand

Blauvelt recounted how he stayed up until 2 a.m. Friday working on the campaign, with help from teams in other parts of the U.S. and other countries. He then slept for a few hours before waking up for morning prayers.

Friday afternoon, as the reality of what took place happened, he broke down crying. He remembers reading accounts of the shooting: the man at the mosque who came out to greet the gunman, saying, "Hello, brother" before he was shot, the story of a woman trying to protect her paralyzed husband, and kids who were murdered inside a house of worship.

"Suddenly, it becomes very human," he said.

The city of Christchurch is a small place, and so the Muslim community is very tight-knit, making the tragedy more difficult for the Muslim community.

"There's no way you weren't affected by this," he said.

Meanwhile, he and other Muslims in metro Detroit were tense about the risk of copycats attacking mosques in Michigan.

"One of the conversations in our community now is the need for armed guards or armed services in the mosques for every prayer," he said. "People are really worried and they feel really unsafe. I live in Dearborn. If someone wanted to make a statement in America, where would they go? Probably, they would go to Dearborn. So there is this very intense fear in our community."

Blauvelt said that the shooting was especially painful because in New Zealand, "you have this beautiful diverse community ... it's very accepting of its diversity."

He said the shooting came about as a result of growing intolerance.

"It's somewhat inevitable given all of this hate speech that we see directed toward all sorts of minorities, especially Muslims," he said. "We expect this to happen again, unfortunately."

Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or 313-223-4792. Follow him on Twitter @nwarikoo