Fundraising platform GoFundMe Pro has vowed to remove 1.4 million donation landing pages that it created without permission for American organizations, after nonprofits expressed widespread concern.
The pages were professionally designed and included the nonprofit’s EIN, logo, and bio. They were created using publicly available information and without the consent or knowledge of the organizations. Constituents could donate using the page, and add optional tips that would go to the platform.
Nonprofits, which are accustomed to tightly controlling their messages and appeals to donors, were worried the alternative donation pages gave donors an entirely separate path and a different experience, one the nonprofit had less control over. They wanted access to the donor data that was trapped in the platform, and some had regulatory concerns.
Initially, the company’s advice had been for the nonprofit representatives to “claim” the page so they could control its look and feel (or remove it), which outraged many nonprofit leaders. But yesterday, GoFundMe Pro issued an apology on its LinkedIn page, saying that it had “missed the mark” and would remove any pages that had not yet been claimed.
What happens now with unauthorized GoFundMe Pro pages
As of October 23, GoFundMe Pro has promised to:
- Remove all nonprofit pages that it created without permission,
- Turn off SEO by default, meaning the pages will not compete for search engine traffic with a nonprofit’s official fundraising pages,
- Give additional visibility, control, and access to supporter data for those nonprofits who do claim their pages,
- Removing optional “tips” that went to GoFundMe Pro,
- Continue to list basic organization information in its nonprofit directory.
It did not issue a timeline for the changes, which means nonprofits who are worried about how their organization is showing up still need to act.
What to do with a new GoFundMe Pro page you didn’t create?
There’s an easy way to see if your GoFundMe Pro page was made by a member of your team or automatically created by this process.
- Open the GoFundMe search engine.
- Click Nonprofits and enter your organization’s name.
- If, at the bottom of the page, you see a box with the headline “Affiliated with (Organization Name)?” it means that page is unclaimed.
![A box with the heading Affiliated with [organization name blurred]. Below, text reads: Claim this page to track donations, access key insights, and get a verified badge. A button below says Claim page.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20300%20140'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Then, we suggest you sync with your team to figure out if you want to keep the GoFundMe Pro page. As with all fundraising tools, Heller recommends you check the fee structure as well as the tool’s ability to integrate with the rest of your stack and share critical data.
If you do want to keep the page, you can claim it using the link in that box CTA. If not, you can either claim the page and make it private, or reach out to the GoFundMe support team.
Long-term impact on trust
Peer-to-peer platform GoFundMe acquired nonprofit fundraising tool Classy last year and rebranded its nonprofit offering as GoFundMe Pro. This nonprofit pages launch was one of its first forays into the nonprofit market—which has been at the mercy of a maelstrom of big tech disinvestments in recent years—and the move is being widely seen as another in a long list of slights.
Nonprofit marketing strategist Genie Gratto posted in the LinkedIn apology thread that GoFundMe Pro failed because it did not seem to include nonprofit voices in its product planning process.
“Nonprofits still have work to do today to clean up your mess, work they have to do at the expense of the communities and missions they serve, and work that stacks on top of already-burgeoning responsibilities at a really difficult time for the sector,” she wrote.
Unfunded List founder Dave Moss went further.
“This did not cause confusion. I was not confused. I was angry that you used our brand without our consent. You can’t claim you’re working with someone unless they know they’re working with you. I can’t even believe that needs to be explained,” he wrote.
Earlier this week, United Way fundraising leader Kate Stel told LinkedIn that her organization’s new GoFundMe page included links, outdated logos, and a mission statement.
“If donors click a tiny footnote, they’ll see it’s not verified or authorized by OAUW, but come on. This is dishonest. It sets nonprofits up to fail with donors looking to make an impact through a donation in good faith.”
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Director of Marketing
Lyndal has worked at the intersection of nonprofits and technology for most of her career, building strategic marketing programs and managing data-driven campaigns at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Nonprofit Technology Network, InfluxData, and others. She leads Heller’s marketing efforts and is excited to position Team Heller as the partner of choice for nonprofit and education advancement leaders. When not at her desk, Lyndal is usually on a hiking trail or listening to a podcast about star stuff.
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