LEWISTON, Maine — Pressure is continuing to build on the Maine Community Foundation as national survivor advocates, local victims, and family members demand that money donated in the name of Lewiston mass shooting victims be directed to the people who suffered most.
In a sharply worded public statement, VictimsFirst, a national organization made up of mass shooting survivors and victims’ families, called on the Maine Community Foundation to replace the $1.9 million distributed to nonprofits and redirect that money to Lewiston victims and survivors.
The group’s message was direct, money raised in the name of victims should go to victims, not be funneled into nonprofits under the banner of “community recovery.”
VictimsFirst said it was founded because of a long and troubling history of nonprofit organizations exploiting mass shooting families and survivors at the most vulnerable moments of their lives. The organization said that pattern is not new, has persisted for decades, and has now played out in Lewiston.
According to the group, the lack of oversight and accountability surrounding post-tragedy fundraising has helped create what survivors have called the “mass shooting industrial complex”, a system in which nonprofit organizations financially benefit in the wake of public horror while families and survivors are left to struggle through the aftermath.
VictimsFirst said its own organization took a different path. It became a nonprofit, the group said, for one reason: to make donations tax-deductible so more money could be raised and delivered directly to victims and survivors. The group said its model is based on direct financial assistance, full transparency, and ensuring every penny, including interest, reaches victims.
That is why the organization drew a bright line between the victims’ fund it supported and the separate Maine Community Foundation fund that sent money to 29 nonprofits.
VictimsFirst said it supported the victims’ fund administered by the Mass Violence Survivors Fund, which delivered 100 percent of donations directly to victims. But, it made clear that it did not support the Maine Community Foundation’s nonprofit fund and would not have contributed to it.
The group also said combining distinct funds under a single moniker created confusion for victims’ families, survivors, donors, and the broader public.
VictimsFirst argued that a separate community fund is not automatically a best practice and should exist only in rare, clearly defined circumstances involving a specific unmet need directly caused by the tragedy and unavailable through other funding sources.
The organization said that was not the case in Lewiston.
It pointed to the Maine Community Foundation’s financial strength and said well-funded community foundations should be capable of supporting local nonprofits during crises from their own reserves, rather than using money collected in the name of victims.
VictimsFirst also stressed that nonprofits often have access to local, state, and federal grants after mass casualty events, funding streams not available to victims and survivors themselves.
“It is not the role of tragedy response funds, collected and raised in the name of victims or in the immediate aftermath of public devastation, to subsidize nonprofit operations without clear, direct benefit to those victims,” the organization said.
The group went further, raising concerns about what it described as clear conflicts of interest and self-dealing inside the Lewiston-Auburn Response Fund’s nonprofit Steering Committee, as well as a lack of accountability in how funds were distributed and spent.
VictimsFirst said grants were issued without meaningful stipulations or reporting requirements, a practice the group said runs directly against the transparency and responsibility victims and donors deserve.
The controversy has not been confined to national advocates.
Destiny Johnson, a Lewiston mass shooting survivor who has been speaking at recent Lewiston City Council meetings, has also emerged as one of the local voices demanding accountability. Most recently, Johnson said the Maine Community Foundation could make the situation right by reaching into its “very deep pockets” and giving the $1.9 million that was donated to survivors directly to them.
Her appearance at this past week’s council meeting also injected fresh tension into an already heated public fight.
Johnson spoke after Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline attempted not to let her speak, even though he was aware she is a shooting survivor. Multiple councilors then requested that the mayor allow her to address the council.
As the controversy has unfolded, much of the focus has centered on Somali nonprofits that received money through the fund. But the scrutiny has widened beyond that.
Advocate Amy Sussman, the aunt of Max Hathaway, who died in the Lewiston shooting, also sharply criticized the process.
“True victim advocacy doesn’t result in nonprofits getting more financial help than shooting victims,” Sussman told the Maine Wire. “The MCF leans in past comments from the consultant, Jeff Dion of the Mass Violence Survivors Fund. I would think he wouldn’t be the person to ask about critically analyzing his own work. Anita Busch from VictimsFirst is the best source for this type of evaluation. And VictimsFirst has taken a lead role in helping the survivors and victims’ families.”
Her comments add to the growing chorus of voices arguing that the Maine Community Foundation has relied on insiders and defenders of the process while brushing aside the concerns of survivors, victims’ relatives, and outside advocates who say the fund was mishandled from the start.
VictimsFirst closed its statement by calling on the Maine Community Foundation to acknowledge what it described as obvious mistakes in its process and take immediate corrective action.
Specifically, the organization said it stands with Lewiston families and survivors in demanding that the $1.9 million distributed to nonprofits be drawn from the foundation’s own coffers and redistributed directly to victims and survivors.
For families and survivors who have spent months watching institutions defend this process, the demand is simple: stop protecting the system and start doing right by the people whose pain made the fundraising possible.
The Somalians seem to have their hands out and their fingers into a lot of Maine money. And, no, I am not politically correct.
“Steering Committee”. Yup.
When will Lewiston stop being an embarrassment?
MCF needs to be investigated, fired, ‘n prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, by the Feds,…….
Lewiston will always be an embarrassment, always. Just look at who runs the city. The money for the shooting survivors and families will never make it to them, the Somalis have already spent or sent it back to Africa. This all points back to Mills and the Marxists bringing the illegal aliens here in the first place. Mainers had enough yet?