Once the application period closed, Dion said about a week passed before they had a good sense of how many applications were postmarked by the deadline.

The steering committee for the fund also created an alternative system of social validation with more than 20 groups to verify that people were in Charlottesville on Aug. 11 and 12, for people who are reluctant to talk with law enforcement or distrustful of the government or systems in general.

“Normally, we would work with law enforcement or victim witness and/or in the case of Parkland, the school system, and they could tell us who was there,” Dion said.

He said the amount of money raised is a function of timing. The Charlottesville fund didn’t start collecting money until late August, after other places to donate already had been established, and it didn’t have a committee chair until September.

“It’s about acting quickly while things are still very active in the news cycle and if you delay in starting that process to collect donations for folks, it becomes much more difficult to collect funds when you’re not at the top of the news,” Dion said.