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Fund Raising Platforms May Be Raising Money Without Your Approval

April 21, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Over on the Charity Lawyer blog Ellis Carter recently posted on a topic that was not on my radar at all. Twenty-three states have sent a letter to GoFundMe regarding donation pages created for 1.5 million non-profits without their knowledge and consent. Apparently Alaska’s attorney general has filed suits against six other donation platforms for doing the same thing.

So you may want to check to see if there are donation pages created in your organization’s name that you did not ask for.

Carter explains some of the issues with this:

…Donors may believe the nonprofit approved the donation page when it did not. The nonprofit may have no control over the content of the page. The nonprofit may not know donations are being solicited in its name. And the nonprofit may be left to deal with donor confusion and regulatory questions about a fundraising effort it never authorized.

…..If a platform creates a donation page without a nonprofit’s knowledge or approval, there is no clear assurance that the nonprofit agreed with the way it was described, understood how donations would be processed, or accepted the legal and practical consequences of the arrangement.

That should concern both charities and donors. Charitable giving depends on public trust, and that trust is weakened when fundraising happens in a nonprofit’s name without the nonprofit’s consent…

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Additionally, Carter says she has actually had clients ran into trouble when they decided to stop soliciting donations in states only to have state regulators point to these unauthorized pages and question whether the organization had truly stopped soliciting.

One of the reasons why the possibility of this situation hadn’t been on my radar is because I assumed sites like GoFundMe has a process for verifying a page was actually created by the non-profit named. The fact they are creating pages without an organization’s knowledge leads me to suspect it would be easy for an imposter to create fake pages in a non-profit’s name as well.

Which again, suggests it may be wise to check for unauthorized fund raising efforts on some of these websites.

Fundraising, Info You Can Use

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Succession Planning Case Study And Resources

April 20, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Last week, CreativeWest hosted a high quality webinar on succession planning. The guest speakers were Roy Hirabayshi, a founder of San Jose Taiko, and Tom Clareson of the Bay Area Arts Readiness Network ond Lyrasis. (Slide decks of their presentations are available.)

Roy talked about the succession planning San Jose Taiko undertook when he and his wife PJ, the Executive Director and Artistic Director, respectively, decided to retire.

I recall hearing when they retired but I was unaware they had started their succession planning seven years prior. What I found valuable about Roy’s presentation was his discussion of all the things they considered. It wasn’t just internal factors like who would succeed them, what records and information needed to be passed on, and what the impact of losing the institutional memory of two of the founders departing at the same time.

They were also concerned about the local community, including the Japantown community in San Jose. Their relationship with taiko groups in Japan and across the US, relationships with donors and funders. They worked across the succession preparation years to cultivate relationships between their successors and these external entities so that there was a level of comfort and familiarity.

They also recognized that there was a need to pay attention to cultural stewardship elements, including musical instruments, scores, and preservation of cultural expression which they embodied.

Tom Clareson’s presentation was more focused on the perspective of what do you do when you don’t have a lot of time to prepare for leadership transitions. Many of his suggestions fell into the general practice of regularly documenting and updating plans, descriptions of procedures, using a standard filing and naming process so that successors have an easier time accessing and understanding what needs to be done.

Emergencies and disasters played a big part in his presentation as well. Even if there is no loss of personnel, having back-ups, redundancies, plans of action for continuing operations in the face of natural disasters, emergencies and technological crises is important.

He said they have added a new category known as Administrative Disasters which includes funding changes/cuts; reputational disasters, event cancellations, socio-political shifts, and succession planning, as areas non-profit organizations should prepare for.

His slide deck had a lot of resources and links related to these issues. Due to recent events he had a couple slides devoted to questions about how small organizations can do succession planning and maintain programmatic and collections management continuity during staffing/leadership gaps caused by the loss of federal funding.

Audience Relations, Boards, Government Relations, Info You Can Use, Leadership

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Are Donors Getting More Than What They Are Paying

April 14, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin recently wrote about his perception that people approach fundraising in the wrong way. He suggests that for the donor making a donation is just as transactional as buying a suite at a NY Knicks game or purchasing Super Bowl tickets.

Fundraisers can fall into the trap of believing that they’re asking for a favor or begging for a donation. But human beings, like all creatures, exchange time, money or risk in return for something. When that exchange is insufficient to cause action, we don’t do it.

[…]

The status and connection they buy is a bargain, worth more than it costs. In fact, if it wasn’t worth more than it costs, they wouldn’t buy it.

The fundraiser isn’t asking for a favor. They’re offering an opportunity.

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I am curious to learn what people’s perception of these thoughts are.

There is already a recognition that external audiences and communities often have a different perception and experience of our organizations than those of us who work within the non-profit sector.

For example, many aren’t able to easily discern between commercial and non-profit performing arts organizations and venues. While some people recognize the difference and are invested in the success of a non-profit’s mission, a fair number of people are engaged by whatever interests them at the time.

Is it the same with fundraising? Are people willing to give if they view what they get in return, be it tangible or intangible rewards, to be worth the price they pay?

Finance, Fundraising

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An A Corporation Affords Artists Alternatives

April 13, 2026

by:

Joe Patti

I had seen a post on LinkedIn celebrating a bill establishing Artist Corporations passing out of committee in Colorado. Since I had never heard of that before, I did some additional research.

It is no wonder I hadn’t heard the term before. If it passes the full legislature, Colorado will be the first state to offer this corporate structure. Artists living anywhere would be able to incorporate themselves in Colorado.

According to Colorado Public Radio the goal is to make it easier for artists to incorporate versus a traditional LLC. Though the A-Corp website has a tool to help people determine whether an A-Corp or LLC would be better financially.

The A-Corp structure ensures artists maintain at least 51% ownership in order to protect their interests and the work they produce.

It also provides an option that falls between a traditional LLC and the reporting burden of a 501 (c) (3) non-profit structure:

“Structurally, we are forced into a binary. Either operate as a traditional for-profit business, which doesn’t account for our public impact or protect us fully, or form a nonprofit, which often comes with administrative burdens that are not feasible for individual artists or small teams.”

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This feature appealed to a senator representing a rural district as enabling creatives to thrive while offering programs and opportunities to smaller communities.

Another possible benefit providing leverage in negotiating health insurance.

“It allows there to be more of a collective power where, for example, we can go to insurance companies and argue, ‘Hey, there should be a group plan for artists corporations. This is a great customer base for you to introduce a specific plan for,’” he said. “Whereas right now, artists have nothing like that.”

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Business Models, Government Relations, New Initiatives, Working In The Arts

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