By SUZANNE DOWNING
March 15, 2026b – Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox has filed lawsuits against six major online fundraising platforms, alleging they created donation pages for charities without the organizations’ knowledge or consent and then solicited donations through those pages.
The lawsuits target GoFundMe, PayPal Inc., Charity Navigator, JustGiving, PledgeTo, and Network for Good. According to the Alaska Department of Law, the companies generated fundraising pages using publicly available nonprofit data and encouraged donations through those pages without first obtaining permission from the charities themselves.
The Attorney General says the practice potentially affected thousands of nonprofits in Alaska.
“Giving to charity—whether it’s time, treasure, or talent—can be one of the most noble things a person does,” Cox said in a statement announcing the legal action. “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.”
Cox said donors may have believed they were giving directly to a specific charity, even though the organization had never authorized the fundraising page and might not have received the full donation after 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,” Cox said. “These lawsuits are about protecting donors, protecting nonprofits, and preserving the public trust that makes charitable giving possible.”
The lawsuits also come against a backdrop of previous controversies involving crowdfunding platforms and at lease one well-known Alaska activist.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, GoFundMe drew criticism from conservatives over its moderation policies. The company maintains rules intended to prevent scams, illegal activity, and fundraising tied to misinformation, but those policies were applied unevenly.
In June 2020, GoFundMe removed and refunded a campaign created by Alaska activist (now candidate for governor) Bernadette Wilson, who at the time was organizing opposition to local mask mandates in Anchorage, mandates put in place by Democrat mayor Ethan Berkowitz.
Wilson had raised about $5,000 through the platform to fund a campaign featuring videos and other content highlighting local doctors who questioned the science behind mask mandates.
According to Wilson, the campaign was removed without a detailed explanation.
“Zero explanation from GoFundMe, other than a generic email that said it violated our terms and conditions,” Wilson told news outlets at the time. “I had reached out to GoFundMe a couple different times now and asked for clarification specification on which aspects of their terms and conditions are violated. And I have heard crickets.”
Five times GoFundMe shut down conservative fundraisers
The Department of Law said the issue around the current lawsuits became apparent after GoFundMe created approximately 1.4 million functional fundraising pages in the fall of 2025 for charities across the country. Investigators estimate that as many as 5,000 Alaska-based nonprofits may have had pages created on the platform without their knowledge.
Under Alaska’s Charitable Solicitations Act, organizations that raise money on behalf of a charity must obtain the charity’s consent before doing so.
The state’s Consumer Protection Unit said its investigation found that other crowdfunding platforms engaged in similar practices. Investigators identified multiple websites hosting donation pages representing Alaska nonprofits that had never authorized the fundraising or agreed to allow those platforms to solicit donations in their name.
The lawsuits focus on some of the largest platforms that hosted or generated these pages.
Nonprofits often maintain strict control over how fundraising occurs in their name, including which platforms they use and how they manage donor relationships. When third parties create donation pages without coordination, it can create confusion for donors and interfere with a nonprofit’s own fundraising efforts.
Unauthorized fundraising pages may also collect platform fees, display outdated information about the nonprofit, or prevent organizations from knowing who donated and how to properly acknowledge donors.
The state’s lawsuits allege violations of both the Alaska Consumer Protection Act and the Charitable Solicitations Act.
Alaska is seeking court orders requiring the companies to remove unauthorized fundraising pages for Alaska charities, along with civil penalties for each violation of the state’s unfair trade practices and charitable solicitation laws.
