Future-Proofing Fundraising

GoFundMe’s platform expands with new initiatives for donors and nonprofit organizations

GoFundMe, the now-ubiquitous website used for generating donations that support individual causes, is expanding into a more formal infrastructure for both donors and recipients. The company, which celebrated its 15-year anniversary in 2025, launched GoFundMe Pro and Nonprofit Pages to provide nonprofit executives with a new suite of fundraising tools earlier this year, as well as Giving Funds, a donor-advised fund for individuals to hold and invest charitable funds in special tax-advantaged accounts.

Donor-advised funds historically have been utilized by high-net-worth individuals for their fiscal advantages. These so-called tax-advantage accounts usually have fees associated with their operation and require certain documentation for tax purposes. Funds must be contributed to organizations rather than individual campaigns. Those specific costs and regulations mean that typically only 1% of the population utilizes these types of accounts.

“We want these accounts to be as widely used as the 401k and health savings accounts. It’s super simple, free, with a low financial bar and designed to build the habit of giving with more money flowing to nonprofits,” said Tim Cadogan, chief executive of GoFundMe.

GoFundMe is a privately held tech company headquartered in San Diego. It serves fundraising operations in 20 countries, most recently adding Mexico last year, although donors can give from anywhere in the world. Its interface has proven an effective and quick way to provide support directly to those in need.

For example, earlier this year, GoFundMe collected a staggering $265 million in donations on its platform for campaigns supporting aid and recovery efforts in the first month after the Southern California wildfires.

The GoFundMe Giving Funds are subsidized and the company handles all of the documentation, making it a free offering to donors (whereas other organizations may charge fees to set up and maintain accounts). Giving Funds operate through a 501(c)3 organization organized by GoFundMe. However, there’s still a limitation to the tax benefits, as donors must itemize to take full advantage of their accounts – those rules will also change next year to decrease the total amount that can be deducted for donations.

Nevertheless, Cadogan noted that the product is a way to encourage a younger generation of donors to start making contributions at any amount at a time when small donations and overall participation have declined.

In conjunction with Giving Funds, it rolled out Nonprofit Pages to connect donors from the site’s 100 million monthly visitors with nonprofits. The pages were prepopulated with basic information about nonprofits, which could then claim the pages, enhance them and collect funds through the platform. There was some initial pushback from nonprofit groups who said that these pages were created without their knowledge or consent; the company quickly addressed those issues by making these pages an opt-in feature.

Pages go hand in hand with the GoFundMe Pro suite of products for nonprofit organizations in the United States. The tools drive fundraising and brand awareness with intelligent, AI-powered tools built from the platform’s data and insights. Thousands of larger nonprofit organizations including World Central Kitchen, Shriners Hospitals for Children and the Salvation Army use GoFundMe Pro’s software. These tools are offered at a time when many organizations have increased both regulatory and fundraising challenges. For example, the state of California implemented AB 488, a law that sets new rules for how social media platforms collect donations, also requiring all nonprofit organizations in the United States to register with California in order to fundraise through social media platforms.

“We support the intent of the legislation to bring accountability, but it created confusion. We have been working with the attorney general to protect the original intent and find a workable solution,” said Kim Wilford, GoFundMe’s chief legal officer and chairwoman of the GoFundMe Giving Fund.

Finding New Revenue for L.A. County Nonprofits

In Los Angeles County, 90% of nonprofits operate with a budget of less than $1 million annually and retain a small staff, making efforts to expand difficult. In many cases, nonprofits are contracting and people are being laid off because money – either from government programs or the private sector – supporting direct services has decreased. The Los Angeles-based Center for Nonprofit Management provides training to nonprofit leaders to help them understand that they operate within a market-driven economy and raising capital is essential to do their good work.

A key part of that is finding ways to generate new revenue streams. Those opportunities include cultivating fundraising relationships with big foundations, marketing services to cities and counties, using low-cost credit lines to ease cash flows and generating rental income from property ownership.

“There is a need for innovation in the philanthropic giving space. The next generation of donors wants to have more control,” said Efrain Escobedo, chief executive and president of the Center for Nonprofit Management. “As federal funding is shifting and there are other market forces like rising costs, we’re at this existential moment where we have to recognize the sector more as an industry. We’ve called it a charitable sector, but as we’ve advanced and communities are growing and more vibrant, nonprofits are essential infrastructure to society and we need to respond accordingly,” he said.