10/27/2025 Update on the GoFundMe Controversy: In mid-October 2025, GoFundMe Pro generated over 1.4 million donation pages for U.S. non-profits without their knowledge or authorization. Built using public data, these pages create significant operational risks for affected organizations.
Since media outlets began to report last week on the understandable backlash and frustration from the fundraising community, GoFundMe (formerly Classy) issued a statement announcing policy changes.
According to The Nonprofit Times, GoFundMe has begun to backtrack several features originally present on the unauthorized donation pages, including the removal of nonprofit logos (although many logos remain, as of this writing), and a default “tip” to the company as part of donations.
Additional policy changes include:
- Making nonprofit pages opt-in only, changing SEO practices
- Unclaimed fundraising pages will be removed or de-indexed from search results
- Tip suggestions are now optional and more clearly stated
For non-profits, the immediate priority is protecting your brand integrity, as well as securing funds and supporter data, especially during the crucial year-end giving season.
This guide outlines the immediate risks and the necessary steps your organization can take to regain control of these pages and prevent them from cannibalizing search engine traffic to the campaigns you’ve built.
Why GoFundMe’s Automatically Generated Pages Pose Critical Risks to Your Fundraising
Editor’s note: For instructions on how to remove your unwanted fundraising page, see the “Immediate Action” section below.
The deployment of these unauthorized donation pages introduces serious challenges that directly compromise your organization’s mission and financial security. Below, we’ll list each risk area and explain why each one can pose an operational risk to your fundraising.
Brand Integrity and Control
The non-profit sector is facing a severe lack of consent in this rollout. The use of your organization’s logo, name, and information without permission exposes your brand to misrepresentation.
As the ABC7 News report confirms, one organization’s treasurer noted, “The fact that they would just on their own build pages for nonprofits that they’ve never spoken to is a problem… I’m a believer in opt-in, not opt-out.” This move, based on an opt-out premise, forces non-profits to spend time policing and correcting pages they didn’t create in the first place.
Fund Disbursement Delays and Donor Trust
The unauthorized pages directly impact your cash flow. Donations made through unclaimed pages are routed through PayPal Giving Fund, and payouts can be significantly postponed, taking anywhere from 15 to 45 days once verified.
For pages that remain unclaimed long-term, funds may be delayed up to 3–5 months via mailed check. Furthermore, the mandatory, confusing “tip” feature—which has been seen set as high as 16.5%—introduces ambiguity and reduces donor trust in where their money is actually going. This is compounded by the fine print, which suggests funds may be redirected to a “similar nonprofit” if the page remains unverified.
The above legal text raises several serious questions:
- Are donor funds dispersed to nonprofits that have not enabled GoFundMe Pay? If the answer is no, is this unauthorized page creation exercise nothing more than a thinly veiled marketing campaign to attract new nonprofit clients?
- If the donated funds don’t reach the intended nonprofit, is the donor informed that their gift will, in fact, not be received by the cause they selected?
As a response to the backlash, GoFundMe has since changed the default “GoFundMe Tip” to 0%. As stated previously, the default tip was originally set as high as 16.5%.
Any tip to GoFundMe would be in addition to the 2.2% transaction fee the company charges nonprofits, plus $0.30 per donation. That fee escalates to 2.9% for individual fundraisers.
Data Access and Digital Competition
Donor data is collected and held by GoFundMe, meaning that your organization loses real-time access to your donors’ information, preventing you from providing immediate stewardship and receipting.
GoFundMe’s Krista Lamp acknowledged that claiming the page is required to gain “full visibility over donor data,” confirming that data is gated until action is taken. Until a nonprofit claims the donors who have given money to their cause, they won’t be included in donor journeys, long-term communication sequences, and segmentation strategies.
Search Visibility (SEO)
Perhaps the greatest offense of all from GoFundMe’s page-building campaign: Auto-generated fundraising pages were initially launched in October 2025 with SEO data and indexing that competed with donation search terms.
On Friday, October 24, GoFundMe opted to delist all unclaimed pages on its platform, moving to an opt-in model. However, the pages should never have been published without permission in the first place, as the pages generated created SEO competition for critical fundraising pages.
The auto-generated pages competed for top Google search results for nonprofit brand terms. So if someone searched, “Your Organization Name] donate,” they may have seen a fundraising page that the nonprofit organization didn’t build or approve, which created competition for high-intent donor traffic. This diverted traffic and revenue from nonprofits’ official donation forms, impacting acquisition and conversion rates from owned channels.
GoFundMe has since reversed course, but the cost of lost donations had an irreversible impact on the funding that nonprofits deserve to have control over.
Immediate Action: How to Claim or Stop Your Nonprofit’s Unauthorized GoFundMe Donation Page
Non-profits must be proactive. The following steps, consistent with advice from legal counsel and industry experts, are required to mitigate risk and secure your assets:
1. Confirm Your GoFundMe Presence
First, determine if a page exists and if it has processed donations. Use the platform’s charity search feature to locate your organization’s generated page. Then, conduct searches for your organization name alongside terms like “GoFundMe” or “donate” to see if the page is ranking in search results.
2. Execute Your Strategy (Claim vs. Removal)
The immediate objective is to secure any funds and eliminate the competing page. The recommended course of action is to claim the page only if necessary to secure funds, and then immediately shut down the donation functionality.
Option 1: Claim and Retrieve Funds (Required if donations were made)
- Action: Proceed with GoFundMe’s process to verify and claim the page. This is essential for gaining access to the processed funds and the associated donor data.
- Post-Claim: Immediately use the settings to disable public fundraising on the page. This eliminates future SEO competition and ensures all new traffic is directed to your official website.
(Above: An unclaimed, unauthorized page listing for The Human Rights Campaign)
Option 2: Request Full Removal (Ideal if no funds were collected)
- Action: Submit a takedown notice to formally request that the page be permanently removed and de-indexed from search engines.
- Method: Send a formal request via GoFundMe’s Data Removal Form or directly to the privacy/DPO emails.
- Required Information: Include your full legal non-profit name, EIN, the specific URLs of the unauthorized pages, and a clear request for removal, delisting, and de-indexing, citing “unauthorized charitable solicitation” and “brand misuse.”
3. Internal Review and Process
- Communicate: Inform your staff and board of the situation and your chosen response strategy.
- Audit Your Own Forms: Review your official donation pages to ensure they are 100% transparent about any fees or options for donors to cover costs.
Our Position on GoFundMe’s Actions
While GoFundMe’s change in position has since mitigated many of the negative impacts of its unauthorized fundraising page creation campaign, the company’s actions were a betrayal of the nonprofit community’s trust.
GoFundMe’s creation of 1.4 million fundraising pages without asking was a calculated marketing campaign designed to increase its own revenue at the expense of each nonprofit’s hard-earned donor trust and brand recognition.
The administrative burden of constantly policing unwanted, unauthorized third-party pages is a critical misuse of resources that should instead be dedicated to your mission. Your technology should be a strategic asset, not a competitor.
At Engaging Networks, our core philosophy is built around the fundamental principles that GoFundMe’s actions violated:
- You Own the Relationship: We operate on an opt-in principle. Every campaign is intentionally launched by your team, securing 100% control over your branding and messaging. Your supporter data is instantly available to you for immediate stewardship.
- Full Transparency: We will never impersonate your organization or default an ask for a platform “tip.”
- Integrated Digital Defense: Engaging Networks is an all-in-one platform for fundraising, advocacy, and marketing. Our tools are designed to maximize your digital acquisition and defend your search presence, guaranteeing your high-converting, official donation pages always dominate search engine results.
- A True Partner: We are a privately owned company, answerable only to our non-profit clients. Our focus is exclusively on your success, backed by a highly rated (4.9/5 satisfaction) support team, who provide the clear, human-centered help you deserve.
Your organization is fighting for a cause—it shouldn’t have to fight its technology too.
Nonprofits deserve better. If you believe your fundraising should be direct, transparent, and focused on building long-term donor relationships, talk to our team about a platform that puts you in control.
You can fill out the form below if you’re interested in having a member of our team contact you.
