I’m a little late, and this has been “resolved” (I guess), but I still think it is important to write about, particularly through my lens as a volunteer and donor.
If nothing else, this whole ordeal was a reminder to me that nonprofits are not immune from the actions of predatory corporations.
Donors need to be informed, vigilant, and consider how money gets from their wallet to the nonprofit’s bank account. Ideally, that line is direct. If there is a third-party platform involved (in a greater capacity than just hosting the payment page as a service), maybe consider asking some questions.
In case you missed it, GoFundMe created donation pages for 1.4 million nonprofits. These pages went live, were searchable on the internet, and collected donations, all without the nonprofits’ knowledge or consent.
Now, you might be thinking, “So what’s the big deal? Seems like GoFundMe did something nice in creating another place for nonprofits to receive donations from.”
But here’s the thing: this was all done behind the nonprofits’ backs. They had no idea that GoFundMe was planning to do this, and didn’t even know it happened until after the fact. To top it off, there was no easy way for these organizations to delete the pages and scrub their presence on GoFundMe.
If you want to learn more about the specifics of the GoFundMe fiasco, this article (that I found via this LinkedIn post by Lynne Wester) is a very comprehensive overview.
Below are what that article’s author, Roger Craver, suggests Fundraisers demand from GoFundMe, with a little commentary from yours truly:
In a LinkedIn post I made on the topic, I likened what GoFundMe did to a third-party business scraping the internet for information about your business (without confirmation of its accuracy), setting up a website soliciting investors, and taking a fee and a cut of the investment, all without your consent or knowledge. Sounds pretty crazy, right?
It’s an imperfect metaphor, but it’s not that far off from what GoFundMe did. Instead of presenting this idea to nonprofits and philanthropies and allowing them to opt-in, they decided they knew best, went live with the pages, and left nonprofits to scramble and search to see if they were affected. AND THEN the nonprofits, already short on time and resources, had to figure out how to delete their pages (or keep the page and figure out what that means for their overall development strategy).
Generally speaking, a platform collecting a fee is not an issue. In 2025, most people (nonprofits and donors alike) understand this. Even so, a lot of us don’t read the fine print, and it’s not clear how transparent this is on the GoFundMe donation pages or through the donation transaction process.
But, and here’s the egregious part, GoFundMe’s default “tip” (which is on top of the standard fee) suggested on the nonprofit donation pages was 14.5-16%, all of which would go directly to GoFundMe and not benefit the charity.
This is important.
We’re taught as children that it’s polite to send a thank-you note when you receive a gift. It usually helps to have the name and address of the person who gave you the gift.
Donor stewardship is a critical piece of the fundraising cycle. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the tenets of good donor stewardship, but I know data is vital. If a nonprofit does not have total ownership of data related to transactions on their GoFundMe page, they lose the ability to communicate directly with donors. This potentially puts the nonprofit’s reputation at risk, limits the opportunity to convert one-time donors to recurring donors, and hinders community-building with this GoFundMe donor base.
I won’t further belabor the issue since it’s 2025 and we all understand that data is valuable. Nonprofits need to own their donor data. And yes, as far as I’m concerned, nonprofits need to own that data, not just have access to it. Access can be revoked, but ownership is forever.
Any donations that GoFundMe receives via their nonprofit pages should be immediately transferred to the nonprofit, not monthly, quarterly, or once a minimum dollar amount has been achieved.
Seems reasonable to me, no further commentary needed.
Nonprofit giving platforms should publish annual reports that include critical data and KPIs, including: total donations received, collected fees, and time-to-process and transfer donations to the charity.
This also seems more than reasonable to me.
I don’t know a lot about this, but apparently, individuals and groups have to apply for registered fundraiser status to legally solicit donations for a nonprofit or charity. This is a separate process from applying for and maintaining federal 501c3 tax-exempt status and is managed at the state level. Somehow (at least until now), giving platforms have been exempt from this requirement, or slipped through the cracks of some loophole.
I hate loopholes, especially for corporations.
It seems reasonable to me that giving platforms should need to adhere to the same ethical standards as individuals and groups who are currently required to register as fundraisers.
I don’t know much about search engine optimization, but a major complaint by nonprofit professionals affected by this fiasco was that GoFundMe was sabotaging their SEO. At risk was that GoFundMe’s donation pages would pop up on the top of your Google results before the nonprofit’s own website. And what do people typically click? The first link, potentially hurting the nonprofit’s website traffic and ability to directly attract donors.
Pretty self-explanatory. See Item #6.
GoFundMe came out on October 22 (a week after this was first reported) with a non-apology on LinkedIn that lacked the appropriate empathy and accountability the situation required.
The following day, October 23, they tried again with a second LinkedIn post. The word “sorry” appears once, and the word “apology” is completely absent.
The actions they claim to be taking in the second post are the minimum actions needed, but good on them, I guess, for finally figuring it out and reading the room.
Personally, I think it took a phone call from Diane Yentel (of the National Council of Nonprofits) for them to really listen.
Developing a multi-lens awareness of your giving will make you a better donor, advocate, and volunteer. As I wrote in a previous article, part of becoming a true ally to the sector (and by extension, your favorite charitable causes), is trusting nonprofits. Nonprofits are the experts on the communities they serve, and they understand their challenges better and more holistically than anyone parachuting in from outside.
Like any sector (or corporation or individual), they may benefit from having external insights, which is where consultants come in. And there are plenty of nonprofit consultants with specific expertise to fill that need.
What nonprofits don’t need is for-profit corporations swooping in and undermining their processes and practices under the guise of “doing them a favor” (while also making a buck of their own).
Resource-strapped organizations have been forced to divert precious time and energy away from their programs, (real) fundraising, and other efforts to chase down their GoFundMe pages, file cease and desist letters, and figure out how to delete their presence off the platform. I read LinkedIn posts that suggested some folks had wasted tens of hours on this problem. That might not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but if you are a volunteer-run organization (as ~69% of nonprofits in the USA are) or have a small team, that is precious time away from mission-focused work.
We, as their supporters, should do our best to lessen the load.
So, click with care.
There are real people on the other side of your donation, and they want the opportunity to thank you.
Trusting The Communities You Serve
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September 19, 2025
I work for a huge, global, matrix organization. I have bosses on bosses. There are people whom I have to “keep informed” about my work who don’t know anything (and probably don’t care) about my projects. Most of them have never worked in a role like mine, or if they did, did so a million years ago when the company (and global economy) was quite differen…
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