March 4, 2026 – Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and a bipartisan coalition of 21 attorneys general and charitable regulators are voicing serious concerns to GoFundMe.
They allege that GoFundMe created imposter donation pages for numerous charities without their consent.
“GoFundMe has quickly become one of the most recognizable names in the online charitable giving space, which is why their practice of creating imposter web sites is so concerning,” said Attorney General Ellison. “I’m particularly troubled by GoFundMe’s apparent pattern of attempting to intercept donations meant for other charities by creating pages to fundraise on behalf of other charities, often without their knowledge or consent, then working to get search engines to list GoFundMe’s fundraising pages above the official fundraising campaigns hosted by those charities. More troubling still is that GoFundMe may be taking a 16.5% cut of those donations made on GoFundMe but meant for other charities. This conduct is completely unacceptable, so I’m teaming up with a bipartisan coalition of other attorneys general and charity regulators to demand answers.”
The coalition has demanded GoFundMe provide proof of removing unauthorized pages within 14 days. They also urge the company to disclose information related to these donations and clarify how its pages were prioritized in search results over official charity pages.
GoFundMe, a for-profit corporation headquartered in California, has been accused of violating state charitable solicitation and consumer protection laws. The coalition includes representatives from states such as Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
A spokesperson for GoFundMe issued the following statement in response to the letter:
“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.”
By Mike Bunge, KIMT 3
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