Six prominent crowdfunding platforms are being sued by the State of Alaska for creating donation pages for charities without the knowledge or consent of the nonprofits and profiting by charging a fee or asking the donor for a “tip” to defray costs.
GoFundMe, Pay Pal Inc., Charity Navigator, Just Giving, Pledge and Network for Good are accused of using publicly available data to generate fundraising pages for more than one million nonprofits and then soliciting donations through those pages without first obtaining permission from the charities.
The lawsuits seek court orders requiring the companies to remove any unauthorized donation pages for Alaska charities, along with civil penalties for each violation of Alaska’s Unfair Trade Practices and Charitable Solicitations Acts.
Alaska has standing to sue because unauthorized solicitation pages might have been created for many as 5,000 Alaska-based charities, in most cases without their knowledge. The state’s Charitable Solicitations Act requires solicitors to obtain consent before fundraising on behalf of a charity.
Alaska’s suit came seven calendar days after 23 state attorneys general, led by California, sent a demand letter to GoFundMe regarding its Nonprofit Pages program where web donation pages were made without consent of most of the charities. Alaska was not a party to the letter.
Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox announced the lawsuits. “Giving to charity — whether it’s time, treasure, or talent — can be one of the most noble things a person does,” Cox said via a statement. “Alaskans are generous people. But generosity depends on trust. GoFundMe and similar platforms used nonprofits’ good names to solicit donations without coordinating with the organizations actually doing the charitable work,” Cox continued via the statement.
Subsequent investigation by the state’s Consumer Protection Unit found additional crowdfunding platforms in addition to GoFundMe might have engaged in similar conduct, creating unauthorized fundraising pages for Alaska charities.
“GoFundMe’s unauthorized donation page and those like it on other platforms negatively impact the nonprofit sector,” said Laurie Wolf, president and CEO of the Foraker Group, which is the state association for Alaska nonprofits. “Philanthropy relies on the ability to honor donor intent and donor trust. This all requires nonprofit consent, transparency, and accountability, none of which is offered in these transactions.”
Foraker Group issued a warning to nonprofits on October 23, 2025. That warning was about GoFundMe. “We then issued another alert on December 9th when it became clear that other fundraising platforms were following GoFundMe’s tactics,” Wolf told The NonProfit Times.
“We looked at Alaska laws which made it very clear that these practices were not aligned and reached out to the Attorney General’s office. What we did not know at the time was that two Alaska laws were in play: our charitable solicitation law and our consumer protection law,” said Wolf. “We worked closely with a chief investigator for consumer protection and the assistant attorney general to research the scope of the impact.”
Foraker Group is a member organization of the National Council of Nonprofits. “Nonprofits must retain the power to decide for themselves how and when to engage with other partners, and the expertise of nonprofits should be sought and valued in advance of any effort related to their work,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits. “At NCN, we will continue working to ensure that nonprofits’ voices are respected, their brands are protected, and public trust in the sector remains strong.”
GoFundMe released a statement when reached for comment by The NonProfit Times. “GoFundMe’s mission is to help people help each other by making it easier for donors to discover and support the causes they care about. We are committed to helping nonprofits reach new supporters by connecting them with the millions of people on our platform who want to make a difference. Nonprofit Pages were created using publicly available information to help people support nonprofit organizations, with donations going to the intended nonprofit.”
The statement continued: “After hearing feedback from nonprofit leaders in October, we acted quickly to make Nonprofit Pages fully opt-in, removed and de-indexed unclaimed pages, and turned off search engine optimization by default. The immediate changes we made directly addressed the concerns of the nonprofit community, and reflect our continued commitment to transparency, accountability, and partnership with the nonprofit sector.”
GoFundMe was the only one of the targeted firms to make a statement. Some of the firms had not been made aware of the lawsuits by late Tuesday.
The letter from the states to GoFundMe was dated March 3 and gave GoFundMe 14 days to respond. The letter outlines four areas of concern:
* Inaccurate Charity Information: “Public reports indicate inaccurate names, logos, social media sites, and charitable purposes of many charities were displayed on the pages created by GoFundMe, which demonstrates how imperative it is to obtain prior consent for fundraising using a charity’s information.”
* Disclosure about Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) Structure: “In some instances, the pages did not clearly disclose that contributions were made to a DAF (donor-advised fund) sponsor rather than the featured charity, explain the nature of a DAF vehicle or its implications for donor intent and fund distribution, and thereby risked deceiving and confusing the public.”
* Impression of Charity Affiliation: “According to public reports, the overall page presentations likely gave donors the impression that the pages were operated by, or directly affiliated with, the named charities –when instead, they were actually operated by GoFundMe.”
* Default Tip and Search Engine Optimization: “In addition, public reports indicate GoFundMe’s donation pages may have applied a default “tip” of approximately 16.5% intended to pay GoFundMe directly. Those same public reports allege GoFundMe used search engine optimization (SEO) that caused its donation pages to appear above official fundraising campaigns maintained by the charities themselves. If true, the SEO may have diverted prospective donors from giving directly to the charities, or worse, the public in need of charitable services, looking for the charities’ official websites.”
The demand for corrective action includes:
* Provide proof that GoFundMe has removed all unauthorized donation web pages and is requiring prior consent for charity donation web pages.
* Demonstrate the takedown procedures implemented to remove unauthorized donation pages without action by the charity.
* Explain how GoFundMe has modified its SEO practices to ensure charities’ own fundraising campaigns or websites are not disadvantaged.
The states also demanded that GoFundMe undertake a comprehensive review of relevant policies and procedures and implement additional remedial measures.
