Hi friends 👋🏻

This week, a follow-up to the news I shared back in October about GoFundMe quietly creating shadow donation pages for over 1 million US nonprofit organizations without consent. If you need a refresher on that, check out the email I sent on October 21, 2025.

Now a bipartisan coalition of 21 state attorneys general and charity regulators is demanding answers from GoFundMe about their actions, warning about potential violations of state consumer protection and charitable solicitation laws.

---

Want links to recent emails or a sign-up link to share? Go to The Digital Landscape sign-up page​

---

California Attorney General writes public letter to GoFundMe

CA Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a public letter to GoFundMe last week, which you can read here, on behalf of 21 state AGs and charity regulators seeking more information and warning of potential legal violations.

The letter describes the harms caused as follows:

Moving on to a description of potential legal and regulatory violations (although this is not a lawsuit), the AGs remind GoFundMe that their actions may have broken state charitable solicitation and consumer protection laws, including (quoting from the letter):

• Lack of Required Consent: Many states require written consent from a charity before a third party may solicit funds using that charity’s name, intellectual property, or likeness.
• Deceptive or Misleading Conduct: Presenting a web page in a manner that may lead donors to believe it is operated by, or directly connected to, a charity likely violates various state statutes that prohibit deceptive advertising or solicitation practices.
• Insufficient or Omitted Disclosures: Failure to clearly and conspicuously disclose material information—such as the identity of the entity actually receiving donations, the use of a DAF intermediary, that donors can no longer direct the donation, and that charities may not be sent donations promptly, if at all—presents compliance issues under various state laws.

---

I'm sharing this here because the issue got a lot of attention in the Fall last year, and while GoFundMe eventually apologized and tried to reverse course, they only did so in the face of broad public outcry.

I'm sure most of the folks that work at GoFundMe (and formerly Classy which was acquired by GoFundMe) have their clients' best interests at heart, but I think this is a good example of where the line got fuzzy for some executives between what is good for nonprofits, and what is good for GoFundMe's business bottom-line.

Even if we assume best possible intentions, it didn't seem to cross the minds of leadership at GoFundMe to ask consent of nonprofit orgs before creating these donation pages (and apparently to consult their own legal counsel, who presumably would have advised of such clear legal risk).

I hope the actions of this coalition of AGs and regulators will remind all the for-profit companies working in the charitable sector that they need to talk with nonprofits as they develop their services.

I don't see anything wrong with GoFundMe (or any other donation processing platform) providing this hosted-donation-page as a opt-in service for their nonprofit clients. Some small nonprofits might appreciate the opportunity to have this taken care of for them (although from a brand ownership perspective I would strong advise against it!)

But any offering like this must be offered:

• As an opt-in service only
• With complete transparency about where donated funds are going
• With a clear explanation about the implications for search and answer engine visibility

---

I'll close with the same reminder I shared back in October.

Establishing and retaining donor trust is crucial for nonprofit organizations. You want donors to feel confident that when the search Google or ask Claude how to make a donation to your cause, the donation page they land on is owned and controlled by your organization, and that the money is going to your account.

As a quick first step to establishing whether you're at risk here, open up a private browser window or a open a new free Claude or ChatGPT account, and conduct some searches/ask some questions about how to give to your organization. Review the resulting answers and search results pages, and make sure everything you see is accurate (and ideally owned/controlled by you)!

---

Do you have a website project coming up this year that you want to discuss?

I offer free consultations for nonprofit org staff considering a website rebuild or redesign, or who need help answering questions like these.

I'm currently booking new projects to start in May and beyond.

If you want to chat, use this link to find a time for us to talk.

---