Sometimes a fundraiser doesn't work out and you need to refund your donors. The good news is that you may be able to take care of this without reaching out to our team! Just note that this action is not reversible, so once you decide to issue refunds, you won't be able to change your mind. Your donors will receive their funds back in 3-7 business days (weekends and holidays aren't included).
How to Issue Refunds Yourself
You may be able to refund all donors to your fundraiser without contacting our team if you have a personal fundraiser based in the US or Canada, have raised no more than $1000 (within the last 6 months), have not added a beneficiary, and have not withdrawn funds. To get started, just follow these steps:
- Click this link to go to our contact form
- Fill out the contact form with the following:
- "Managing the fundraiser I created"
- "Ending a GoFundMe & issuing refunds"
- "How do I refund all my donors?' *You can choose this option even if your fundraiser has only raised one donation.*
- Enter your account email where it says, "Your Email Address"
- Locate the email in your inbox and click "Refund all donations"
If you do not meet the above criteria to fully refund your fundraiser yourself, you have trouble with the above steps, or you wish to refund only certain donors, please click here to submit your refund request.
Accounts based in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland, along with a few of our Australian customers, have Stripe accounts. These customers can refund on their end without contacting GoFundMe.
If you click "Withdraw" from within your GoFundMe account and see a mention of your Stripe email, you can use that email to sign into Stripe using the link below and then follow these steps to issue refunds:
- Log in to your Stripe account here
- On the left-hand side, click "Payments"
- Click the three dots beside the payment you would like to refund and click "Refund Payment"
- You’ll be prompted to select a reason for your refund before confirming. Once you confirm, your refund will be successfully completed
- You’ll then see "Refunded" next to the donation, within your Stripe dashboard
On Stripe these take between 5-10 business days to return to your donor.
Please note: If you created a new account and fundraiser raising funds in Canadian Dollars on or after May 29th, 2020, you may have Stripe, but you will not be able to issue refunds from your end. You will need to submit your refund request using this form.
Issuing Refunds on a certified charity fundraiser
Donations made before the 15th of the current month can be refunded before the 20th of that same month. For example, if a donation is made on May 5th, it is available for refund until May 19th.
Donations made after the 15th of the current month can be refunded before the 20th of the following month. For example, if a donation is made on May 17th, it is available for refund until June 19th.
Please note: You aren’t able to issue refunds on a certified charity fundraiser on your own, so please see details below on getting help issuing refunds.
Get Help Issuing a Refund
If you wish to fully refund your fundraiser but have trouble with the steps above, or you wish to refund a single or select donors, please click here to submit your refund request and our team will follow up with you.
Important: If you've already withdrawn the funds, you may need to refund your donors outside of GoFundMe or we may need to first recover the money from your bank account depending on which payment processor your account is set up with.