March 3, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) – Attorney General Ellison today, along with a bipartisan coalition of 21 attorneys general and charitable regulators, sent a letter to GoFundMe, after reports that GoFundMe created imposter donation web pages for charities nationwide without their prior knowledge or consent. In the letter, the coalition shares their grave concerns about GoFundMe’s conduct and calls for immediate remedial measures, including providing proof that GoFundMe has removed all unauthorized donation web pages, in the next 14 days.
“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.”
GoFundMe provides an internet platform for people to fundraise and solicit donations, including for charities. GoFundMe is a for-profit Delaware corporation headquartered in California and is registered with the Registry of Charities and Fundraisers as a charitable fundraising platform. Without prior consent or knowledge of charities, GoFundMe created imposter donation web pages for over 1.4 million charities. The donation pages contained inaccurate information about charities and GoFundMe’s solicitations contained deceptive and misleading statements…