Fundraising Platforms and the Push for Nonprofit-First Standards

Art Taylor, AFP Global President & CEO, provides an overview. Read the full article below for more information. 

Online fundraising platforms have been part of our sector for more than two decades. Platforms like MissionFish (now PayPal Giving Fund), Network for Good, and Charity Navigator launched more than 20 years ago, and from the very beginning, they used publicly available data from IRS filings to build searchable directories of U.S. nonprofits, allowing donors to give to charities through those third-party platforms. 

Fast forward to 2025, and GoFundMe processed 32 million donations to nonprofits in a single year. Across the sector, these types of platforms have collectively helped channel tens of billions of dollars to philanthropic efforts, making them a consequential part of the social good infrastructure.

That reach was built, in large part, on what became known as the opt-out model. This model meant that nonprofits were listed by default. If an organization didn't want to appear on one of these platforms, it was their responsibility to find out the listing was there, and request removal.

What Changed in October 2025

It wasn’t until October of 2025 that a meaningful shift occurred. As opposed to simply listing charities in a directory, GoFundMe began creating active fundraising pages on behalf of nonprofits — without their knowledge or consent — raising two significant concerns.

First, GoFundMe’s massive domain authority meant that its auto-generated pages were sometimes appearing above nonprofits’ own websites in Google search results. Donors searching for a charity by name could land on a GoFundMe page the organization never created, sometimes with outdated information, wrong logos, or inaccurate descriptions, before ever finding the nonprofit’s own site.

Second, donations through these pages included a default optional donor tip of 16.5% sent to GoFundMe. 

AFP’s Response: Alerting Members and Working Toward a Solution

As soon as we became aware of the issue, AFP communicated with GoFundMe, and the next day it announced the pages would be removed and its CEO issued an apology to all nonprofits. This was reported to AFP members on October 24 in the AFP Weekly newsletter, along with additional information on the de-indexing of the pages and the opportunity to opt-in and claim their pages, if nonprofits wanted to use a GoFundMe page. 

Since October, AFP has continued to work behind the scenes with these fundraising platforms to develop a real, lasting solution, anticipating that this issue would not end with GoFundMe alone. 

The Multistate Attorney General Letter

This month, those early expectations of a broader impact were validated as the issue drew increased regulatory attention.

In March 2026, a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general and charity regulators sent a formal letter to GoFundMe’s General Counsel, Kim Wilford, demanding a full accounting of the platform’s practices and warning that its conduct may have violated state consumer protection and charitable solicitation laws.
The letter was signed by attorneys general and charity regulators from 21 states:

California, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Alaska Takes Independent Legal Action

Alaska did not join the multistate letter, with state officials concluding that its approach did not go far enough. Instead, Alaska’s Attorney General filed civil lawsuits in Anchorage Superior Court against six platforms, making it the most aggressive regulatory action taken to date.

Taken together, the multistate letter and the Alaska lawsuits signal clearly that regulators across the country view this as a sector-wide problem, not an isolated incident involving a single platform.

AFP’s Path Forward: Nonprofits First

The attorneys general have the right to ask hard questions. But given the history of these platforms and the genuine value they bring to our sector, AFP believes it is crucial that nonprofits lead the effort to develop a solution that places charitable organizations’ needs at the forefront. 

Since October 2025, AFP has been more active in conversation with fundraising platforms, collaborating on a framework that puts nonprofits first. These principles will provide guidance on:

• Search engine fairness and indexing practices
• Transparent fee disclosure and the elimination of hidden charges
• Opt-in standards for nonprofit page creation and platform presence
• Data ownership and donor data protection
• Privacy, security, and accountability mechanisms

We have shared this framework with fundraising platforms, and we are working toward genuine commitments that reflect what donors and nonprofits deserve from every platform in this space.

This work is ongoing, and we expect further developments in the months ahead. AFP will continue to engage platform leaders, share updates with our members and the broader fundraising community, and advocate for standards that protect nonprofits and the public trust that enables philanthropic giving.