Nonprofit GoFundMe Alert

Indiana nonprofits need to be aware of a potentially dangerous situation affecting many nonprofits.

Recently, GoFundMe automatically created “nonprofit pages” for approximately 1.4 million 501(c)(3) organizations using publicly available IRS data and information from partners like the PayPal Giving Fund. These pages included branding and nonprofit information but did not include links to the nonprofit’s own fundraising pages.

None of these nonprofits consented to this, nor were they even notified.

According to GoFundMe, this move “allows 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 actively created a GoFundMe campaign.”

GoFundMe receives a transaction fee of 2.2% plus 30 cents per donation to a nonprofit fundraising page in addition to a so-called tip of 16%. While the so-called tip is characterized as optional, a donor must manually reduce this to zero in order to remove the so-called “tip”.

Some nonprofits may see this as an opportunity for cultivating donors they would not otherwise reach. But most will realize this is a blatant attempt to take advantage of people who want to support a local nonprofit, not realizing their dollars would go much further by giving directly to the nonprofit and skipping the fees and the “tip”. Actions like these, which are not fully transparent, undermine the integrity of charitable giving.

What You Can Do:

• Verify your nonprofit’s possible presence on GoFundMe here.  Review the page for correct address, EIN, and mission details.
• Determine your next step. Contact GoFundMe support to update, claim, or request removal of your page. It is your choice.
• Educate your donors. Remind supporters and sponsors to give through your official platforms—not through third-party pages unless you send them the links.

You can learn more about these pages and how GoFundMe has responded to the resulting criticism here.