Giving Fountain
Giving Fountain built listings for 1,682,903 nonprofits from IRS exempt-organization records and accepted donations for any of them, keeping an 8% disbursement fee plus a 3% card fee; two listings had been claimed when captured on 2026-09-17. The operator did not appear in California's charity registry in searches run with a control query. The site went offline on 2026-09-21 and its listing pages now return 410 Gone.
The checklist
What we have checked on Giving Fountain, what we found, and what it rests on.
- 1. Off-domain Present
Listings were served at givingfountain.org/directory/<uuid>, not on the nonprofits' own domains.
Basis: Dated evidence bundle - 2. Auto-generated Present
Listings were generated from IRS exempt-organization records; the operator described the source as the IRS Business Master File.
Basis: Dated evidence bundle - 3. No consent Present
Terms section 8 said an organization may be listed without having registered or taken any action, and the claimed filter returned 2 of 1,682,903 listings.
Basis: Dated evidence bundle - 4. Takes gifts Present
Unclaimed listings carried a live Donate Now button and the checkout preloaded the listed organization (screenshot 08).
Basis: Dated evidence bundle - 5. Intermediary Present
Donations were paid to The Giving Fountain, Inc., which paid unclaimed organizations by mail to their IRS address; the Terms did not address returned or uncashed checks.
Basis: Dated evidence bundle - 6. Search-indexed Present
Exposure, not ranking: the saved listing pages carried meta robots "index, follow" with a self-referencing canonical, and the sitemap index enumerated 49 files of up to 1,000 listings; Google rankings were not checked, and the listings have returned 410 Gone since the 2026-09-21 closure.
Basis: Dated evidence bundle
Event log
Everything that has happened on the record, newest first.
- Capture
Takedown captured
Whole Whale captured the offline homepage; the directory, listing pages and facets API returned 410 Gone.
Source: Takedown captures - Finding
Registry recheck with dashed FEIN
The California registry search was re-run with the dashed FEIN 41-3218258 and both name spellings; it still returned no record.
Source: Registry recheck captures - Published
Page 4950 marks it offline
The NNF directory entry was marked offline since 2026-09-21 and its CA FEIN citation was corrected to the dashed form.
Source: NNF Shadow Donation Directory - Platform change
Site closed
Giving Fountain took the site offline, stating it had closed in response to feedback from the nonprofit community and was no longer accepting donations or publishing listings.
Source: NNF Shadow Donation Directory events timeline - Published
NNF article published
Nonprofit News Feed published "1.7 Million Nonprofits Are Listed on GivingFountain. Only 2 of Them Signed Up." (datePublished 2026-09-18T16:10:07Z).
Source: Nonprofit News Feed - Response
Operator describes a new removal path
In a public Google for Nonprofits forum thread about its Ad Grants application, the operator wrote that it had added an unclaimed notice and a removal-request link after a 2026-09-16 comment challenging its model.
Source: Google for Nonprofits Community thread 467963535 - Capture
Evidence bundle captured
Whole Whale captured listings, checkout, Terms, fee pages, API responses and 26 screenshots by anonymous public GET, and submitted 13 URLs to the Wayback Machine.
Source: GivingFountain evidence bundle - Finding
Not found in California's charity registry
Searches for "Giving Fountain" and its FEIN returned no record while a control search for Sierra Club Foundation returned its row; the directory listed 183,285 California organizations.
Source: CA registry search captures - Published
Added to page 4950
Giving Fountain was added as the first entry on the NNF Shadow Donation Directory from captures made that day.
Source: NNF Shadow Donation Directory footer - Capture
Wayback capture of an early listing
An archived listing from 2026-06-12 shows no unclaimed notice, no removal link and no IRS-source note, and carries a Verified badge.
Source: Wayback Machine copy saved in the evidence bundle - Regulatory
IRS ruling for the operator
The Giving Fountain, Inc. (EIN 41-3218258) received its IRS ruling dated 2026-06-01 and had filed no Form 990 as of capture.
Source: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer record
If your organization is on Giving Fountain
We have not verified a removal or claim route for Giving Fountain yet. Search the platform for your legal name and EIN, and contact the platform directly.
Reply and corrections
Giving Fountain can reply to anything on this page by writing to letstalk@wholewhale.com. We publish replies and log corrections with the date they were made.