Important Update: Unauthorized GoFundMe Pages Affect Nonprofits

GoFundMe recently created donation pages for roughly 1.4 million nonprofit organizations without their knowledge or consent. These unauthorized pages caused significant confusion and concern across the nonprofit sector.

Many of these pages contained inaccurate information such as outdated addresses or incorrect logos and were optimized to appear above official nonprofit websites in search results. Donations made through these pages were also subject to processing fees and optional “tips” that reduced the net amount received by the intended organizations.

Some nonprofits also reported difficulty removing these pages without agreeing to GoFundMe’s terms or sharing sensitive financial details, raising additional compliance and data privacy concerns.

Following advocacy from the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) and feedback from affected organizations, GoFundMe has issued a public apology and committed to the following corrective actions:

• Removing all unclaimed nonprofit pages
• Turning off SEO optimization and deindexing pages from search engines
• Requiring nonprofits to opt in before any new pages are created

GoFundMe plans to release detailed guidance for nonprofits wishing to manage or remove their existing pages in the near future.

If you are a nonprofit and have been affected by these unauthorized pages, please reach out to your local nonprofit association for guidance or you can contact our BMSS nonprofit professionals for assistance by calling (833) CPA-BMSS or visiting our website for contact information.