My friend's home burned in LA's fire. I used tech to maximize my $5,001 donation

CES attendee and my first paid subscriber Tommy Keiser lost his home in the LA fires. The Shortcut CES Awards will go out tomorrow to draw attention to how to donate

I’m preempting the usual The Shortcut CES Awards newsletter until tomorrow to bring you essential tech tips for LA fire donations.

The LA fires burned down his family’s home. Here’s how you can maximize your donation and avoid new GoFundMe ‘tipping’ fees

• 🏠 My good friend Tommy Keiser lost his home to the LA fires in Altadena

• ❤️ He & his brother Bryan Keiser helped me endlessly when I moved to LA

• 💸 So I donated $5,001 to his GoFundMe to help his family rebuild their lives

• 📈 I learned you can maximize donations with a credit card & avoid fees

• 💳 With my Apple Card via Apple Pay, I got 2% back (every little bit helps)

• 🙅‍♂️ GoFundMe applies a default 14% tip for itself! You CAN say no thanks to that

Tommy Keiser, the FIRST paid subscriber to The Shortcut when I launched on Substack and one of my biggest backers when I lived in Los Angeles, lost his Altadena, California, home to the LA fires.

Tommy, Valentine and Chelsea during the holidays

I donated $5,001 to the GoFundMe for Tommy, his wife & my friend Chelsea Bayouth, and their 3-year-old daughter Valentine, who lost everything but thankfully escaped to safety. It’s going to take a lot for them to rebuild their lives.

Tommy Keiser, a past CES attendee, lost his home in the LA fires. I’m asking tech companies and my gadget-loving audience to help his family rebuild their lives.

Tommy is a past CES attendee (so, he’s one of us), thus I’m delaying The Shortcut’s coverage of the CES 2025 Awards until tomorrow to focus on donations. And, yes, I found a tech angle to save you money if you want to donate to his family or one of the thousands of others affected by the devastating LA fires.

Tommy treated me like a brother when I moved to LA, so there was only one amount I could donate when I saw that Bryan Keiser, my roommate for 8 years, was the top donor. Sorry/not sorry, Bry!

Why I donated exactly $5,001

First, Tommy treated me like a brother when I moved from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles. I had just driven 3,000 miles to live there and was dealt a lousy hand with my initial LA roommates. Even though Tommy and I only knew of each other from high school, he made an effort to hang out when I sent him a lengthy Facebook message.

Tommy showed me LA when I first moved there and I was a bit lost. We had dance moves back then.

Bryan Keiser, Tommy’s actual brother and donator of $5,000 (you see where this is going), soon became my Hermosa Beach roommate for EIGHT of my nine years in LA. The three of us grew close with over-the-top friendly competitions when I lived near them – heck, even when I moved to NYC, they’d still hold a better birthday party for me (without me) every year in a local LA bar. They’d send me the videos with a cake with my name and people singing Happy Birthday (to me without me).

Naturally, when I saw Bryan and his wife Lauren donate $5,000 to Tommy as the top donors, I immediately knew exactly how much money to give – $1 more to unseat Bryan, Price is Right style. My friend Chris perfectly described my move, saying, “You somehow struck the right balance between magnanimous and totally petty. Love it!”

Really, any amount will help Tommy’s family and others you decide to donate to. I’ve seen my followers donate $5 and $100.

OK, now some tips.

1. How I got $100 back paying with a credit card

I’ve only donated via GoFundMe once before (when friend and tech YouTuber Josh Vergara lost his entire backpack to theft at MWC). So, I almost made two big mistakes.

By default, GoFundMe guided me to donate with PayPal via my bank debit card, which would have given me 0% back. So here’s the critical fix:

• First, donate with a credit card to earn points. Rewards will be modest, but you’ll receive 1% cash back or 1 point per dollar on most credit cards.

Why not double it? I used Google Chrome initially, but by switching to Safari, I was able to pay with Apple Pay, so…

• Second, if you have an Apple Credit Card, use Safari on a Mac, iPhone or iPad. By donating via Apple Pay, you’ll earn 2% back.

• For my $5,001, I got $100.02 back, which goes into my Apple High Yield Savings account. I’ll use that to visit Tommy and Chelsea in the future.

2. GoFundMe will try to ‘tip’ itself 14% by default

Wow. Wow. No. While I appreciate what platforms like GoFundMe do, every cent should go to the victims of the LA fires right now.

• GoFundMe, by default, tried to tip itself $700.14!

• In very tiny text, it says, “Enter custom tip.” I found out that you can click this link and set the amount to $0. Even I got mixed up here and set it to $0.01.

• If you set it to $0, the “Add a GoFundMe tip” message will pop up, but you CAN proceed to donate by tipping $0 despite this warning message.

You got me for $0.01, GoFundMe, but I’m glad you didn’t tip yourself $700.14.

Thank you!

Thank you for reading up on how to donate to LA fire victims. I’ve already seen some familiar names on Tommy and Chelsea’s donation page, deeply contrasting with the horrific images of their once happy home on the very same page.

Tommy and Chelsea have touched many lives – in Philly, in Los Angeles, at CES, as part of Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (if you’ve ever watched Robot Chicken, they made it happen), in Altadena, and on Tommy’s coffee-dedicated Instagram.

• ☕ Big thanks to Coffee Check NYC’s David Cogen, aka theunlock on YouTube, for donating $100. You guys would get along.

• 🙏 Thanks to Krista Sparks, George Troxell, Diana Maxham, Nancy and others I already see donating.

• 📻 Also, thanks to KTLA’s Rich DeMuro for having me on his radio show today so I could spotlight Tommy and publicize how Rich’s listeners can maximize their donations.

I’d love to see tech companies donate and help rebuild the lives of Tommy, Chelsea, and the people affected by the Altenda and Los Angeles fires. 🙏