This is awesome. I've personally sponsored a few people over the years and seen a few get corporate sponsorship (not from their employer), great to have a pool for it.

I've heard people griping about fund drives for these types of things for
years, I've been one in some cases. I understand having the feeling of "why can't you people self-fund", but at the end of the day no one _needs_ to contribute and no one _needs_ to feel guilty about not contributing to efforts like this. Embrace the positive here.

I will say, maybe we ought to embrace WordPress based solutions a bit more like GiveWP (which is free with paid addons, although knowing those folks I'd bet they would donate any paid add-ons needed in kind for this).

Way less of the donations would get eaten up by fees that way... Even GoFuneMe's 8% is pretty obscene to give away when you don't need to.