March 10, 2026

(Anchorage, Alaska) - Today, Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox announced lawsuits against six crowdfunding platforms-GoFundMe, Pay Pal Inc, Charity Navigator, Just Giving, Pledge to and Network for Good-for creating donation pages for charities without their knowledge or consent. The lawsuits allege that these companies used publicly available data to generate fundraising pages for over a million nonprofits-including several thousand in Alaska-and then solicited donations through those pages without first obtaining permission from the charities themselves.

"Giving to charity-whether it's time, treasure, or talent-can be one of the most noble things a person does," said Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox. "Alaskans are generous people. But generosity depends on trust. GoFundMe and similar platforms used nonprofits' good names to solicit donations without coordinating with the organizations actually doing the charitable work. That means some Alaskans may have donated thinking they were supporting a specific charity, when the charity never authorized the page and may never have received the donation-or may have received less than donors intended because of fees. Alaska law is clear: if you're going to raise money in a charity's name, you must first get the charity's consent. These lawsuits are about protecting donors, protecting nonprofits, and preserving the public trust that makes charitable giving possible."

Today's lawsuits were applauded by The Foraker Group in Alaska, which was founded in 2001 to serve all Alaska nonprofits and tribes by strengthening their internal capacity and promoting philanthropy. "GoFundMe's unauthorized donation page and those like it on other platforms negatively impact the nonprofit sector," said President and CEO of the Foraker Group Laurie Wolf. "Philanthropy relies on the ability to honor donor intent and donor trust. This all requires nonprofit consent, transparency, and accountability, none of which is offered in these transactions."

In the fall of 2025, GoFundMe created 1.4 million functional pages for different charities that allowed individuals to make donations. GoFundMe may have created unauthorized pages for as many as 5,000 Alaska-based charities, in most cases without their knowledge. The Charitable Solicitations Act requires solicitors to obtain consent before fundraising on behalf of a charity.

Further investigation by the Consumer Protection Unit within the Attorney General's Office revealed that additional crowdfunding platforms have engaged in similar conduct, creating unauthorized fundraising pages for Alaska charities. Investigators identified multiple platforms hosting pages that appeared to represent Alaska nonprofits-even though the nonprofits themselves had never authorized the pages or agreed to allow those platforms to solicit donations on their behalf. The current lawsuits target some of the largest platforms that hosted or created these unauthorized fundraising pages for Alaska charities.

Nonprofit organizations have a strong interest in controlling how fundraising occurs in their name, including which strategies they deploy, which vendors or platforms they partner with, and how they manage relationships with donors. When a third party inserts itself between a donor and a nonprofit without the nonprofit's knowledge or consent, it can disrupt that relationship and create confusion about who is conducting the fundraising and how much of a donation will ultimately reach the intended organization. Unauthorized pages may collect fees, display outdated or inaccurate information, compete with a nonprofit's own fundraising efforts, or prevent the nonprofit from knowing who donated, when the donation occurred, and how to acknowledge or steward that support.

By ignoring the Charitable Solicitations Act and the Alaska Consumer Protection Act, these groups have failed to provide transparency to charities and donors. The State's lawsuits seek court orders requiring the companies to remove any unauthorized donation pages for Alaska charities, along with civil penalties for each violation of Alaska's Unfair Trade Practices and Charitable Solicitations Acts.

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Department Media Contact: Information Officer Sam Curtis at [email protected] or (907) 269-6269.