Another Headache for America's Charities

It’s a news story that should have been uncovered months ago, but perhaps everyone was too distracted and overwhelmed by the daily chaos from Washington, D.C.

[Update:] Thursday, October 23, 2025, 10:25 am PDT: I uploaded this post late yesterday afternoon, but waited to press the “publish” button, anticipating that there would be important developments overnight in this fast-moving situation. Instead of rewriting it, I’m adding the major developments as an open-ended note after the  Conclusion. It’s likely that during the course of today, this now-blockbuster scandal will continue to evolve. Just added: almost noon, PDT: news of a major settlement of this problem.

Quietly, and with little fanfare, the basic – suspicious – facts emerged via a local newsroom troubleshooter report. See GoFundMe created 1.4M donation pages for nonprofits; some Bay Area organizations had no clue (October 15, 2025, 5:51 pm PDT) Stephanie Sierra, abc7news.com (San Bruno, CA). 

Ms. Sierra reported: “The treasurer of the Friends of the San Bruno Public Library got a call from the library that left him puzzled. ‘One of our patrons at the library … wanted to make a donation in someone’s name who had passed away….The person went online and found a GoFundMe page tied to the library’s nonprofit and wanted to know if it was legit or not.”

“’It was something that we did not set up and were a little concerned about’ the treasurer said ‘We weren’t sure what was going on.’”

Since the library foundation treasurer had “struggled to find anyone to contact from GoFundMe about this, … he reached out to 7 On Your Side for help.” (According to other reports that have surfaced this week, many organizations had unsuccessfully tried to find someone – anyone – at GoFundMe to talk to about their own unsolicited GoFundMe pages.)

ABC/7’s Stephanie Sierra got through to Krista Lamp, the senior director of Non-Profit Communications at GoFundMe. Ms. Lamp nonchalantly mentioned to the troubleshooting news specialist that the program, which had been going on for some time, was started by Go Fund Me. The for-profit platform had “taken upon itself to create ‘nonprofit pages’ for 1.4 million 501C-3 organizations using public IRS data along with information from trusted partners like the PayPal Giving Fund.”

The rationale was to allow “individuals across GoFundMe’s 200 million-strong global community to easily discover and donate to nonprofit organizations, helping them support causes and charitable missions they care about, even if the organization hasn’t created a GoFundMe campaign.”

On Friday, October 17, 2025, George Weiner, the founder of WholeWhale.com, a digital marketing agency – a “proud certified B Corp” – for nonprofits, picked up the trail and relayed the still-sketchy story more widely in his publication called Nonprofit News Feed. See  1.4 Million Donation Pages without Permission created by GoFundMe (October 17, 2025). Some of WholeWhale’s clients had contacted Mr. Weiner that afternoon, expressing their “complete confusion as to how these pages were created.”

The Inevitable Non-Apology Apology

As confirmed by The Agitator’s editor, Roger Craven, a week later – that is, today: “Bay Area nonprofits started discovering something odd: GoFundMe had quietly created 1.4 million donation pages for U.S. charities — auto-generated from IRS and Candid data.  No one asked for permission. No onboarding call. No ‘click to consent.’ Just instant web pages bearing nonprofit names, ready to receive donations and of course platform fees.” See Ethics Awareness Month: The Great Scrape of 2025 (October 22, 2025) Roger Craver, agitator.donorvoice.com. “It wasn’t a hack. It was policy.

Over the weekend and through Monday afternoon, the 20th, this story picked up traction. Late in the day, GoFundMe Pro, San Diego, Ca, self-described as “the #1 fundraising platform for nonprofits,” issued one of those infamous, tone-deaf, non-apology apologies. See: We have heard from nonprofits over the last few days about our Nonprofit Pages [plus comments] (October 21, 2025)  Go Fund Me Pro: The #1 fundraising platform for nonprofits, San Diego, CA, LinkedIn Post,  www.linkedin.com; reposted by Go Fund Me, Fundraising,  Redwood City, CA, www.linkedin.com.

The NonProfit Times’s Paul Clolery, reported this development. See Breaking: GoFundMe Reversing Course On Nonprofit Pages (October 21, 2025).

Then, the philanthropy internet – primarily LinkedIn – exploded.

A few brave souls were (early on) inclined to give GoFundMe the benefit of the doubt; namely, the for-profit platform’s heart was in the right place – wanting to help out the nation’s nonprofits – but they executed that intent amateurishly.

That was short-lived. By Monday evening, the villagers went in search of the torches and pitchforks. See, for instance:

• Ongoing GoFundMe Story, With GoFundMe Response (October 21, 2025) Tony Martignetti, LinkedIn Post, www.linkedin.com; follow-up post, Ongoing GoFundMe Story: Their Post, Community Livestream Coming (October 22, 2025); see particularly, the ever-growing comments sections
• When Platforms Violate Trust (October 21, 2025) Craig Bowman, President, Common Ground Consulting, linkedin.com/pulse [“GoFundMe’s Unauthorized Nonprofit Pages Strike at the Heart of Our Sector’s Biggest Challenge; The Trust Crisis is Real, and Getting Worse”]
• Navigating the GoFundMe Unauthorized Pages Crisis (October 21, 2025), Louis Diez, WIZE Team, Memorandum to DPP Community Members & WIZE Services Consulting Clients, app.wizenow.com; see also, Louis Diez, LinkedIn Post-10/21/2025 and comments
• 1 question about this official response, (October 21, 2025) George Weiner, Chief Whaler, WholeWhale.com, LinkedIn Post, linkedin.com.
• Nonprofit colleagues—this should set off alarm bells  (October 21, 2025) LinkedIn Post, Amanda Steele, Senior Director of Development at PRH, linkedin.com1.4M GoFundMe Shadow Donate pages were just ingested by AI platforms (October 22, 2025) George Weiner, Chief Whaler, WholeWhale.com, linkedin.com.

The Objections

Nonprofits’ primary concerns – at even this early stage of understanding the full facts – include:

• Control: The unauthorized pages gave nonprofits no control over their own branding, messaging, or relationship with donors.
• Intellectual Property: Early indications are that the program involves substantial infringement and misappropriation of intellectual property. “Many of the unauthorized auto-generated GoFundMe pages include nonprofits’ trademarks and intellectual property, … Organizations need to protect their marks, avoid donor confusion, consider if this would create charitable solicitation registration requirements, and send cease and desist letters to GoFundMe.”
• Confusion: Donors may have been confused about whether they were giving directly to a charity or through an intermediary. Some nonprofits report being contacted by patrons, supporters, and donors asking about the legitimacy of the pages.
• Default tips and transaction fees: On top of the 2.2% transaction fee, GoFundMe’s pages set an optional tip at a default amount (initially 16.5% according to one report) that donors might not realize is optional or adjustable. In any event, it’s a bit higher in amount than comparable fees. Nonprofits expressed concern that the optional tip makes fees less transparent for donors. But more importantly, GoFundMe, through this fee structure, is siphoning off charitable dollars.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) competition: The auto-generated pages compete with charities’ official websites for visibility in search results. This can divert potential donors away from a nonprofit’s own donation portal.
• Data: Unclaimed pages give nonprofits no access to data about who is donating. This hinders the cultivation of long-term donor relationships.
• Hardship: “Not only are these pages live and stealing traffic from nonprofit websites during the busiest season for fundraising, GoFundMe Pro is making nonprofits jump through multiple hoops to get them removed.” There are many first-hand accounts of difficulties including a wait of many months – if it happens at all.
• Fine Print: There are deeply troubling terms in the parts of the documentation that few people ever review, including some leeway for GoFundMe to turn over the donations or not.
• AI Fears: “[T]his move is extra-worrisome paired with the release of AI browser agents this week.   People can tell their AI agents to ‘donate to charity X’ and the dumb thing may land on a higher ranking GoFundMe page than your own charity’s site.”

Above all, there is near-universal exasperation that the nonprofit sector – already under unprecedented stress – now has this additional worry and time-consuming mess to clean up.

Conclusion

This is a rapidly developing story that is turning into a blockbuster scandal.

Roger Craven does not exaggerate when he explains the explosive nature of this fluid situation. “As The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) celebrates Ethics Awareness Month —one of our sector’s largest digital intermediaries, GoFundMe, stands accused of crossing lines that would make even the most jaded  fundraiser blush.”

Undoubtedly, into this evening and tomorrow, there will be further developments to digest and report.

[New Developments Thursday Morning] See Tony Martignetti’s post on LinkedIn about four hours ago titled Ongoing GoFundMe Story: GFM Reneges On Community Livestream & Doesn’t Give A Damn About Our Nonprofit Community. There are at least 20 co-signers, so far, to Tony’s post along with an ever-growing swell of observations and opinions as “Comments.” 

[Another New Development] Diane Yentel, head of the National Council of Nonprofits, has announced successful negotiations with GoFundMe that are reversing these massive and unwelcome changes. See Ms. Yentel’s announcement as well as an official communication from the CEO of GoFundMe: LinkedIn Post.

– Linda J. Rosenthal, J.D., FPLG Information & Research Director