{"id":4402231458973,"date":"2026-04-20T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/?p=4402231458973"},"modified":"2026-04-28T21:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T01:39:07","slug":"lawsuits-against-gofundme-paypal-fire-a-fundraising-warning-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/news\/lawsuits-against-gofundme-paypal-fire-a-fundraising-warning-shot\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuits Against GoFundMe, PayPal Fire a Fundraising Warning Shot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nearly five months after nonprofit outrage caused GoFundMe to reverse course on fundraising pages it had created<\/a> for more than a million nonprofits, the issue has returned to the limelight in a blockbuster lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox sued<\/a> GoFundMe and five other tech firms \u2014 Charity Navigator, PayPal Giving Fund, Pledgeling Technologies, JustGiving, and Network for Good Inc. (doing business as ForGood<\/a>) \u2014 alleging donation pages they created for charities without their consent violate Alaska law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuits are the latest legal salvo in an ongoing disagreement over whether businesses and other organizations that support charities can raise money for charities or represent them in other ways without first seeking their approval and input. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis should be a wake-up call to all vendors, especially all tech vendors in the nonprofit space,\u201d says T. Clay Buck, founder of Next River Fundraising Strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But will it be? Experts say organizations that benefit from nonprofit fundraising have overstepped in the past and faced legal challenges. One of those groups, PayPal Giving Fund, is named in the Alaska lawsuit. While the lawsuits wind their way through the courts, nonprofits and professional associations are thinking through strategies to protect their organizations from future oversteps by technology platforms that serve nonprofits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protecting Nonprofits and Donors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Alaska cases, filed separately against each entity, say they allowed donors to give to charities via pages on their websites and that these pages were not created by or authorized by the charities. While GoFundMe\u2019s pages were dedicated solely to fundraising, others, like Charity Navigator, included a clickable donate button on pages that offer information about a charity\u2019s operations and impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlaska law is clear: if you\u2019re going to raise money in a charity\u2019s name, you must first get the charity\u2019s consent,\u201d said Cox in a statement announcing the lawsuits. \u201cThese lawsuits are about protecting donors, protecting nonprofits, and preserving the public trust that makes charitable giving possible.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurie Wolf is CEO of the Foraker Group, an Alaskan nonprofit identified in Cox\u2019s lawsuit against GoFundMe as one that experienced harm from the unauthorized pages. She says her organization doesn\u2019t have a mission statement, yet a GoFundMe page that emerged in October included one. She notes GoFundMe isn\u2019t the only one doing this, and Wolf doesn\u2019t want her staff spending time policing websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe lawsuit is showcasing that this is becoming a practice that is certainly not legal in the state of Alaska but also seems to be a common practice across all these platforms,\u201d Wolf told the Chronicle.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These pages are problematic for a lot of reasons, Wolf says, but especially because they interfere with donor communication. \u201cThese for-profit companies have taken away the ability to be in relationship with one’s donors,\u201d she says. \u201cWe should be able to have donor stewardship and do donor recognition and do our own donor cultivation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Alaska lawsuits are asking the courts to force the groups to remove unauthorized donation pages, turn over any money due to a nonprofit, award civil penalties of $1,000 to $25,000 per violation, and require defendants to pay for the investigative costs the state incurred. In the case against GoFundMe, which came under fire for asking donors to give it a tip, the state wants GoFundMe to identify which donors gave tips and the court to determine if that money should either be returned to the donors or given to the nonprofit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chronicle of Philanthropy<\/em> reached out to all the groups named in the lawsuits for comment. GoFundMe sent a statement saying they created the pages to help nonprofits but changed them to opt-in only last fall after hearing feedback from nonprofits. \u201cThe changes we made last year already address the concerns raised in this lawsuit and reflect our continued commitment to transparency, accountability, and partnership with the nonprofit sector,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement provided to the Chronicle,<\/em> Charity Navigator said that as a 501(c)(3) charity, it \u201chas remained focused on supporting and providing ratings and resources free of charge to donors and nonprofits while continuing to strengthen trust across the sector. Charity Navigator believes that it operates in compliance with the law and is committed to working through the legal process to resolve this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PayPal, Pledgeling Technologies, JustGiving, and Network for Good, did not respond to our requests for comment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n