Minnesota Joins Coalition Demanding GoFundMe Remove Unauthorized Charity Donation Pages

(KNSI) – Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is joining a bipartisan coalition of 21 other attorneys general and charitable regulators in demanding answers from GoFundMe over what they’re calling imposter donation pages.

The coalition sent a letter to GoFundMe this week after reports surfaced that the fundraising platform created donation web pages for more than 1.4 million charities nationwide without those organizations’ knowledge or consent.

Ellison called the conduct unacceptable. “I’m particularly troubled by GoFundMe’s apparent pattern of attempting to intercept donations meant for other charities by creating pages to fundraise on behalf of other charities, often without their knowledge or consent,” Ellison said.

The attorney general accused GoFundMe of working to push its pages above charities’ official fundraising campaigns in search engine results, and may have taken a 16.5% cut of donations made through those unauthorized pages.

The coalition is giving GoFundMe 14 days to respond and is demanding the company prove it has removed all unauthorized pages, disclose where donations were actually sent, and explain how it allowed its pages to outrank official charity sites in search results.

Joining Ellison in the effort are attorneys general and charitable regulators from Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

A statement from a GoFundMe spokesperson emailed to KNSI News says, “GoFundMe is committed to helping nonprofits reach new donors by making it easier for the millions of people on our platform to discover and support the causes they care about. Nonprofit Pages were created using publicly available information to help people support nonprofit organizations, with donations going to the intended nonprofit.

“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 in October directly addressed the concerns outlined in the letter received today from the state Attorneys General, and reflect our continued commitment to transparency, accountability, and partnership with the nonprofit sector. We welcome the opportunity to share with the Attorneys General the concrete steps we have already implemented in response to the issues raised.”

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