DANA Issues Response to GoFundMe’s Unauthorized Donation Pages for Nonprofits

Donation pages for 1.4-million charitable non-profits created without the non-profits approval or consent on the fundraising platform GoFundMe has sparked confusion. The Delaware Alliance for Nonprofit Advancement (DANA) reports these charity pages were created with information mined from the non-profits along with information from “trusted partners” including Candid and PayPal – but no notice was sent to the organizations that the pages were created on their behalf. It was also not apparent how the non-profits could take control of those GoFundMe charity pages. In response to concerns raised by non-profits and partner organizations – GoFundMe on Thursday announced changes in its non-profit pages policy to make the pages opt-in only, removing and de-indexing unclaimed pages, and turning search engine optimization off by default.

Delaware non-profits should remain vigilant and if unsure whether their organization has had an unauthorized GoFundMe charity page crated for them should visit – https://www.gofundme.com/charity/claim/search.

The National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) is continuing to monitor the situation. If any Delaware non-profits have any questions or issues regarding their charity pages being claimed by an unauthorized user, please contact NCN and DANA (302-485-1614).