When a donor made a $100,000 gift to the Girl Scouts’ Western Washington Council last March, it was time to break out the hand-shaped clappers. One hundred thousand dollars was a big donation for the council, which represents about 25,500 girls in 17 counties in the western part of Washington State.

But in late April, after the funds were in hand, Ms. Ferland received a letter from the donor. "They wanted assurance that their funds would not help support transgender girls participating and if I couldn’t give that assurance they wanted the money returned.” Before she even finished reading the letter, “I thought to myself, ‘The money’s going back.’”

After the money was returned, Ms. Ferland says, a staff member suggested the organization start a crowd-funded campaign to replace the lost donation.

“Help us raise back the $100,000 a donor asked us to return because we welcome transgender girls." In a little over five hours, the site had already received over $100,000 in donations. By the end of that first day, the number was up to $243,958 from 4,760 donors. By the time the fund-raising effort was concluded a month later, the organization had raised $365,573.