Update: On October 23, 2025, GoFundMe released a statement reversing their move to create unauthorized pages. Nonprofit Pages are now opt-in only and unclaimed pages will be removed. If you have yet to claim your page, there is no need to take any action. Helping to protect your brand is a top priority for the team at Burgie MediaFusion. Thank you for the opportunity to keep you informed on the latest developments in the rapidly-changing marketing landscape.
GoFundMe has been under fire in the past week after creating 1.4 million nonprofit fundraising pages and accepting donations, unbeknownst to the actual nonprofit organizations. They used publicly available information, including from the nonprofit’s websites, along partner data to create the unauthorized GoFundMe pages.
GoFundMe released a statement on Oct. 21 backpedaling on some aspects of the pages rollout after receiving backlash, including no longer using a nonprofit’s logo without consent and allowing nonprofits to block their donation page from being discovered by search engines.
The problem with unauthorized pages
Nonprofit organizations have numerous concerns about these unauthorized GoFundMe pages. First, multiple giving platforms can create confusion for your donors. Next, it complicates your ability to collect their gifts. More importantly, because organizations were not consulted or notified about the creation of the pages, many may not even be aware if donations are coming in or how to get the funds.
The fine print on the donation pages states if the nonprofit hasn’t claimed the page and set up payment processing, any funds will be sent to the PayPal Giving Fund minus transaction fees in 15-45 days.
Finally, unauthorized GoFundMe pages can also impact your organization’s search visibility. Because GoFundMe has strong credibility with Google, donors searching for your charity may be directed to those pages instead of your official website—diverting valuable traffic and potential donations. And while GoFundMe has allowed organizations to opt out of SEO, you must claim your page to do so.
What you should do
First, find out if GoFundMe created a page for your nonprofit. Go here and search for your organization. The best way to search is by using the EIN number. If you find a page for your organization, you can confirm it was generated by GoFundMe without your organization’s input and needs to be claimed by hovering over the small information icon. It will show a message stating your organization “has not provided consent or permission for this page.”
Our Director of Integrated Marketing, Melanie Farkas, is on the Board of Directors for a nonprofit called the Natalie Gray Foundation for Pediatric Brain Tumors. She located the unauthorized GoFundMe page and was surprised to see it was populated with the organization’s logo, even after GoFundMe claimed to have removed branding from unauthorized pages. The page also included links to the charity’s website and social media pages. While the links on this page were correct, many nonprofits have discovered their information and links are directing visitors to the wrong sites.
Next, you must claim the page. This is the first step to take control of the page and, if you decide to, take it down. On the page for your nonprofit, scroll down to the bottom and click “Claim page.”
This will take you through the process to claim the page for your organization. Someone with an official email for the nonprofit should do this step verify ownership more quickly. When you’re finished, it will take you to your administrative page on GoFundMePro, hosted by their classy.org platform.
This page will tell you if any donations have been received. This post by GoFundMe outlines how to obtain any donations.
Finally, decide if you want to keep or delete the page. Most nonprofits have their own donation platform. Considering the fees that GoFundMe takes from donations and to prevent donor confusion, it is in most nonprofit organizations’ best interest to delete the page completely.
You can change some settings immediately to remove the page from showing on GoFundMe.com and in search engine results. On the GoFundMePro admin page, go to Settings, click Edit, and uncheck all options.
After you save these settings, the page should no longer show when you search for it on GoFundMe.com.
Getting the page taken down completely is more complicated and they don’t make it easy. While still logged in, Melanie went to the GoFundMe Pro Support Page here and submitted a request outlining that she has authorization to speak on behalf of the organization and requesting that the page be taken down immediately. It took 8 hours for Melanie to receive a response from GoFundMe confirming the page would be deleted.
This article from Nonprofit News Feed includes additional options to request the page be taken down.
While there are many issues with these unauthorized pages, chief among them is brand reputation. Building awareness, nurturing relationships, and maintaining donor trust all take time and effort. The last thing your organization needs is interference from a third party.
These unauthorized donation pages could make your brand appear ignorant at best, dishonest at worst. And at a time when donors value transparency more than ever before, negative perceptions have the potential to harm your organization’s fundraising efforts and overall mission.
While GoFundMe’s decision to create fundraising pages without consent has put the credibility you’ve worked so hard to build at risk, you don’t have to watch from the sidelines. Find out today if your organization has an unauthorized page, take immediate action to mitigate negative outcomes, and speak up in online conversations to let your voice be heard.
