BOSTON – Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell joined 20 other attorneys general in a letter to GoFundMe, a crowdsource fundraising platform, to express concern over allegations that the website created fundraising pages for over 1.4 million charities without their prior knowledge or consent.
The letter cites a report by an ABC affiliate in California about the pages being created.
The attorneys general said that GoFundMe creating the pages left the charities unable to have control of their fundraising or brand. The letter also said that included within GoFundMe’s created pages with the following issues:
- Inaccurate Charity Information: some pages provided inaccurate names, logos, social media sites, and charitable purposes of many charities were displayed on the pages created by GoFundMe.
- Disclosure about Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) Structure: some pages did not clearly disclose that contributions were made to a DAF sponsor rather than the featured charity, explain the nature of a DAF vehicle or its implications for donor intent and fund distribution, and thereby risked deceiving and confusing the public.
- Impression of Charity Affiliation: the overall page presentations likely gave donors the impression that the pages were operated by, or directly affiliated with, the named charities.
- Default Tip: GoFundMe’s donation pages may have applied a default “tip” of approximately 16.5% intended to pay GoFundMe directly.
The letter also says that GoFundMe may have violated various laws related to charitable solicitation and consumer protection in multiple states, including failing to obtain required consent, deceptive or misleading conduct, and insufficient or omitted disclosures.
They demanded that within 14 days the company provide proof it has removed all unauthorized donation pages, demonstrate the takedown procedures to remove the pages, and explain how it would modify its search engine optimization practices to ensure the fundraising and websites by the charities are not disadvantaged.
Along with Campbell, the attorneys general that signed onto the letter are from the states of California, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
GoFundMe provided the following statement to This Week in Worcester:
“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.”
Editor’s note: This article was updated on March 6 to include the statement from GoUndMe.
