In short: GoFundMe (GFM), the largest crowdfunding platform, created 1.4 million “donation pages” for U.S. nonprofits without consent or any contact with said nonprofits.
In the bottom left of most of the pages is a CTA to claim the page. They want NPOs to claim the page and use it to fundraise.
Before I continue, I am sharing three links of posts that you should read to further understand.
- Start here to understand what they did.
- This is a good post about how they did it and the ethics around what they did.
- Nonprofits were definitely taken aback by what GoFundMe did. Read what the President of the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation had to say.
Lemme be clear: GoFundMe is a private company and they are very bottom line oriented. They wanna maximize revenue, especially given the competition in the crowdfunding sphere. So it’s possible that they thought they could make money by creating these pages and getting people to donate to the nonprofits.
I think it’s a BS move. The information they posted on the nonprofit pages might be a couple years old. Some of these organizations may have gift acceptance policies which prevent them from taking gifts thru GoFundMe.
And on and on and on.
Not only that, but let’s say your organization has a page on GFM and people donated. Would you receive those donations? Well, maybe. Or maybe not. Look at what their Terms and Conditions say:
Add in that you may never receive the name of the donor who gave through your GFM page! Bye bye relationship building. Bye bye retention.
😡
What caught my eye was the way the company responded to the kerfuffle. A few months ago I discussed crisis comms and the need to be ready in case you’re suddenly thrown into a crisis.
Based on what I’ve seen so far, GoFundMe is doing a horrible job.
Let’s start with this quote from their Senior Director of Nonprofit Comms. She admits that this move was done on purpose, they don’t care about getting permission from nonprofits to list them on the GFM website and they “plan to do more comms with nonprofits about these pages.”
Well, that puts me at ease. Case closed. 🙄
Before I continue, side point: Some nonprofits showed how, when one searches on Google for their nonprofit, the newly created GFM page comes up in the search results BEFORE their organization’s website. This is HORRIBLE! It means people will go to these “fake” GFM pages to learn more about organizations rather than to the nonprofit’s actual website.
And since some of the info on the GFM pages may be outdated (the data they scraped from the IRS can be 2-3 years old), readers won’t get the full picture. That can mean fewer donations.
😡
Back to comms. It took a few days but GoFundMe finally released a statement. And lemme quote myself: Their statement was a heaping, flaming pile of 💩 . Tone deaf. No apology. Nothing. (For those who want, here’s the full statement.)
Read the comments on my LinkedIn post and you’ll learn how bad this situation is and how much anger there is at GoFundMe. Will that anger translate into action? So far it hasn’t.
I firmly believe this is a cash grab on GFM’s part. They wanna raise revenue and beat the competition. And if nonprofits reputation and fundraising takes a hit? Well, that’s just how it goes in the business world.
And that is the most infuriating part of all. They’re publicly saying it’s a move that helps nonprofits but clearly they didn’t talk to any nonprofits before making this move.
Which all leads to: What should you do?
Take action
I have contacted current and former clients, advised them to check for a GFM unauthorized page and if it exists, ask GFM to remove it or remove it themselves.
Here are some steps you can take:
- Check to see if GFM created a page for your organization (search here).
- If they did, in their post GF said you could contact them via this link. Let them know you want the page taken down for your organization.
- You might wanna consult with your lawyer about sending them a letter to take the page down. GFM’s legal team can be reached via this email address.
- Will they respond? One commentor on my post did reach out and got a response. However, they are a Pro member and they might get better customer service.
- Which is why this might be your best bet: Find your page, claim it and then delete it. Or hide it (if that is possible) until you wanna make it public and use it.
- Stay on LinkedIn and follow sector experts who are staying on top of the story and posting advice about what to do. (I’ll be doing so as well and I’m always happy to connect with nonprofiteers on LinkedIn!)
It’s almost year-end campaign time. I know that many of you don’t have time to deal with this, which makes it all the more frustrating that GoFundMe did this.
But I’d recommend spending a few minutes on this ASAP. If they created a page about your organization and the info on the page is wrong or outdated, it could cost you donations.
Sadly, this is a company trying to make more money on the backs of almost two million organizations who are hard at work changing the world for the better. Shameful.
💡 Last minute findings you should read:
- A good post with a full roundup of the situation, screen shots, advice, what to do etc.
- An excellent post about the reasons for GFM’s actions, the ethics around it and what the sector should be demanding.
