Oregon and other nonprofit organizations who were hurt by GoFundMe’s unauthorized fundraising scheme last October can now join a class action lawsuit against the large cyber company being filed by two law firms, including one in Eugene.
As reported by Oregon ArtsWatch on Oct. 23, GoFundMe established fundraising pages without consent or prior notice for 1.4 million nonprofit organizations across the United States and attempted to monetize them for its own financial profits earlier in the month. Among the nonprofit Oregon arts organizations impacted by the scheme were the Portland Art Museum, Portland Center Stage, and Oregon ArtsWatch itself.
The unauthorized pages looked like authorized pages and included such detailed information for the organizations as mission statements, employer identification numbers, logos, and more. Instead of directing all donated funds to the organizations, however, the GoFundMe-established fundraising pages were set up to charge a 2.2% transaction fee and an additional 30-cent per-donation charge that went to GoFundMe…