GoFundMe Creates Placeholder Pages for 1.4 Million Nonprofits, Many Without Their Knowledge

The article was originally published on https://sfist.com/2025/10/18/gofundme-admits-to-creating-pages-for-1-4m-nonprofits-many-without-their-knowledge/Friends of the San Bruno Public Library discovered that GoFundMe created a donation page for it to “claim” without notifying the nonprofit. The site made 1.4 million such placeholder pages, which need to be manually unpublished by each charity. As KGO’s 7 On Your Side reports, Dave Dornlas, who’s Treasurer of the Friends of the San Bruno Public Library and President of the San Bruno Amateur Radio Club, first became aware of the nonprofit’s phantom GoFundMe page when a patron wanting to make a donation contacted him to make sure it was legitimate. Dornlas told 7 On Your Side he was nonplussed that GoFundMe neglected to get the nonprofit’s pe