In response to thousands of unauthorized donation pages being created by GoFundMe and other fundraising platforms, on June 24, 2026, the National Council of Nonprofits, along with 52 state and regional nonprofit associations representing nearly 40,000 charitable organizations, published a set of principles for ethical online fundraising platforms. The guidelines are not law. No platform is required to follow them, and no nonprofit gains an enforceable right by virtue of their existence. But they are worth understanding, both because of the problem they’re responding to and because of what they suggest nonprofits should be doing on their own, regardless of what the platforms decide to do.
What prompted this – Unauthorized Donation Pages
The immediate trigger, cited repeatedly in state association statements endorsing the principles, was GoFundMe’s decision last year to mine public data on 1.4 million 501(c)(3) organizations and generate unauthorized donation pages for them automatically, without notice or consent. Nonprofits found out their organization had a GoFundMe page, sometimes carrying outdated logos or inaccurate mission descriptions, only after the fact, and it was not always obvious how to get control of it. Some nonprofits clashed with state regulators who presented the pages as evidence they were fundraising in their state.
We covered this problem in detail this spring in Why Unauthorized Donation Pages Are a Real Problem for Nonprofits, after 23 state Attorneys General and Secretaries of State sent a letter to GoFundMe over the practice, and Alaska’s Attorney General filed lawsuits against six crowdfunding platforms over similar conduct. We also flagged it as a recurring theme in state charity regulation in our recap of the 2025 NASCO Annual Report, where a multistate letter led by California pressed GoFundMe to prove it had actually removed the pages it agreed to take down. The NCN’s new principles are best understood as the sector’s collective response to that same pattern, not a new problem so much as an attempt to set an industry-wide baseline after months of one-off regulatory and advocacy pressure.
That is the sharpest example, but the underlying complaint is broader. Hundreds of online fundraising platforms solicit and collect donations on behalf of nonprofits every day, often generating significant revenue in fees and optional donor tips along the way, frequently without the nonprofit’s knowledge, and sometimes using branding the nonprofit never approved.
The four principles
The guidelines are organized around four pillars.
Nonprofit consent. Platforms should obtain written consent from an authorized representative of the nonprofit before creating a donation page on the platform, soliciting or collecting donations on its behalf, and before using its logo, branding, images, or messaging in any promotional or fundraising materials. Only content affirmatively provided by the nonprofit should be used.
Transparency. Donors should be given clear, prominent information, not buried in fine print or terms and conditions, about whether their donation is tax-deductible and which organization will actually receive it. Donors should be notified when the nonprofit receives the funds, and if a platform cannot reach the nonprofit that a donor selected, the donor should be offered the choice to designate an alternate organization or receive a full refund, including any fees.
Partnership. Platforms should treat nonprofits as equal partners rather than as passive listings to be monetized.
Accountability. Platforms should be answerable to the nonprofits whose names they use, donors, the public, and the regulators who oversee charitable solicitation.
Every.org has publicly endorsed the principles, for whatever that is worth as an industry signal. Most major platforms have not yet responded one way or the other.
Why this matters even though it isn’t binding
Charitable solicitation is already regulated at the state level, including in both Washington and Arizona, and existing consumer protection and unfair business practice statutes may already reach some of the conduct these principles describe, depending on the facts. Whether or not that theory is tested on a specific platform, the NCN’s principles serve as a public statement of what the sector considers baseline ethical conduct, and that kind of consensus statement tends to matter later, in regulatory rulemaking, in litigation framing, and in how state charity officials exercise oversight.
For an individual nonprofit, though, the more immediate and practical question isn’t whether platforms will change. It’s what your organization should be doing regardless.
What to actually do about it
Check whether your organization has unauthorized donation pages. Search your organization’s name on GoFundMe and other major platforms. If a page exists that you didn’t create, most platforms have a claim or verification process, though it is not always fast or intuitive. Document what you find, including any outdated branding or inaccurate mission language, before starting that process. If this is new territory for your organization, our post on unauthorized donation pages walks through why this matters and what regulators have been saying about it.
Add a fundraising platform policy to your gift acceptance and donor relations procedures. Decide in advance which platforms your organization will authorize, if any, and who inside the organization has authority to consent on the organization’s behalf. This is worth handling the same way you would handle any other use of your organization’s name and brand, deliberately, not by default.
Review your public disclosures. If donors give through a third-party platform, your organization still has its own disclosure obligations under state charitable solicitation law and, where applicable, IRS rules regarding quid pro quo contributions and donor acknowledgment letters. A platform’s transparency practices, or lack of them, do not relieve your organization of its own.
Watch for state-level activity. The NCN’s guidelines followed a wave of similar disputes in other industries, restaurants pushing back against food delivery apps, hotels against booking platforms, small businesses against Amazon marketplace listings, several of which ended in negotiated agreements or state legislation requiring consent before a business could be listed. As we noted in our review of NASCO’s recent signals, state charity regulators already treat unauthorized donation pages as a significant concern, so nonprofits may see similar legislative proposals introduced at the state level over the next year or two. It’s worth watching whether Washington or Arizona take up anything along those lines.
None of this requires waiting on the platforms to act voluntarily. Getting your own consent policy, disclosures, and claimed listings in order is something your organization can do today.
Ellis Carter is a nonprofit lawyer with Caritas Law Group, P.C., licensed to practice in Washington and Arizona. Ellis advises nonprofit and socially responsible businesses on federal tax and fundraising regulations nationwide. Ellis also advises donors concerning major gifts. To schedule a consultation with Ellis, call 602-456-0071 or email us through our contact form. This post is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.