In October 2025, GoFundMe created more than 1.4 million donation pages for nonprofit organizations without their knowledge or consent, using publicly available IRS data. This affected hundreds of PTAs across the country, including Washington State PTA and many of our affiliate PTAs.
GoFundMe has since made this statement: GoFundMe’s statement.
How do I find out if my PTA is part of this?
Use the GoFundMe’s Nonprofit Search or any search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc…) and search for your organization’s name or EIN. If a page appears that you did not create, make note of the URL and when you found it.
What do I do if I find an account that our PTA was not aware of, but no funds have been donated?
- Fill out the GoFundMe Data Removal Form
- When submitting your request, you should provide:
- Your full legal nonprofit name
- EIN
- The URLs of any unauthorized pages
- A direct request to remove, delist, and de-index all pages using your organization’s name
What do I do if I find an account that our PTA was not aware of, and donations have been made?
If donations have been collected on behalf of your PTA, do not fill out the form above, yet. Instead, you will need to temporarily create an account to claim the funds and transfer them to your nonprofit. Once the funds have cleared, follow the above steps to request that the account be removed.
Why is it important to take care of this as soon as possible?
Having a GoFundMe account that is easily found in searches can mean that looking for your website or official fundraising page can cause donor confusion. You don’t want an account set up by GoFundMe competing with your actual fundraiser.
If you do not hear back from GoFundMe about closing your account or run into barriers in collecting funds, contact WSPTA support@wastatepta.org
If you are interested in more details and insights, check out this blog from Bloomerang.