Donate Now
acquired by GoFundMeSan Diego, US · California corporation · 6 known investors
Find your way into Donate Now
Classy, acquired by GoFundMe, provides fundraising software for nonprofits that combines donation management tools with the GoFundMe platform to help organizations reach donors and increase charitable giving.
Also known as Classy · Classy from GoFundMe · classy.org · GoFundMe Pro · StayClassy
Founders & leadership
Board
Investors · 6
Reported raises · per SEC filings
Form D private placements$63.6M disclosed across 3 of 7 rounds · 2015–2021
▶$17.5MraisedJun 2019 · 14 investors · OtherRule 506(b)
- Patrick WalshDirector
- Paul LeggettDirector
- Christopher HiimesDirector
- Ron WangerinExecutive Officer
- Howard DeshongDirector
- Scot ChisholmExecutive Officer, Director
- Neena Gupta NeedelExecutive Officer
- Adam AaronsExecutive Officer
- Offering amount
- $20M
- Amount sold
- $17.5M
- Sales commissions
- $1M
- Placement agents
- Code Advisors LLC
- First sale
- Jun 2019
- Incorporated
- Corporation, California
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$30MraisedFeb 2017 · 7 investors · OtherRule 506(b)
- Brian HersmanDirector
- Patrick WalshDirector, Promoter
- Christopher HimesDirector
- Howard DeshongDirector
- Scot ChisholmExecutive Officer, Director, Promoter
- Paul LeggettDirector
- Offering amount
- $33M
- Amount sold
- $30M
- First sale
- Oct 2016
- Incorporated
- Corporation, California
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$16.1MraisedSep 2015 · 13 investors · OtherRule 506(b)
- Patrick WalshDirector, Promoter
- Howard DeshongDirector
- Adam GaroneDirector
- Scot ChisholmExecutive Officer, Director, Promoter
- Paul LeggettDirector
- Offering amount
- $18.1M
- Amount sold
- $16.1M
- First sale
- May 2015
- Incorporated
- Corporation, California
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Classy, now operating under the GoFundMe Pro brand, is an online fundraising platform for nonprofit organizations. Its product set covers embeddable and customizable donation forms, campaign pages built without coding through a builder product referred to as Studio, peer-to-peer fundraising tools, recurring and one-time giving, and live event functionality including registration, ticketing and check-in. Donation pages hosted on classy.org and giving.classy.org are used by individual nonprofits to collect one-time and monthly gifts, including gifts made through donor-advised funds, with receipting and donor data handling governed by the platform's privacy policy as the nonprofit's website partner.
The platform also markets an analytics and optimization layer described as GoFundMe Intelligence, which applies donor insights and data to donation form configuration such as personalized suggested ask amounts, giving frequencies and prompts. Following the rebrand, nonprofit customers can claim a Nonprofit Page on GoFundMe, connecting their campaigns to GoFundMe's consumer platform. Published customer examples include the American Cancer Society, which ran community-led challenge campaigns; Direct Relief, which uses campaign performance insights; and Joni and Friends, which built a Giving Tuesday campaign using the Studio campaign builder.
Business model
The company licenses online fundraising software to nonprofit organizations, which use it to build branded donation forms, campaign pages, peer-to-peer fundraising programs and ticketed live events. Donation processing is handled through the platform, and nonprofit customers can additionally claim a Nonprofit Page on GoFundMe to reach that platform's donor base. Sales are conducted through demo requests for organizations of varying size, from large national charities to smaller cause-driven groups.
Revenue derives from providing fundraising software and donation processing to nonprofit organizations that run campaigns, donation forms, peer-to-peer programs and ticketed events on the platform.
Traction
The platform reports $40 billion raised for nonprofit causes and access to a GoFundMe community of more than 200 million. Published case study figures include 46% higher yield and 14-15% repeat organizers for the American Cancer Society, and 37% more gifts and 121% more raised year over year for Joni and Friends.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Describes itself as the leading fundraising platform for nonprofits and reports $40 billion raised through the platform. It operates within a nonprofit fundraising technology market that includes Funraise, Blackbaud, Bonterra and crowdfunding platforms such as JustGiving and GoFundMe's consumer product.
The platform positions the combination of nonprofit-specific campaign, form and event tooling with distribution through GoFundMe's consumer donor community as its distinguishing feature, alongside no-code campaign and form building and data-driven donation form optimization.
Technology
Web-based fundraising software providing no-code campaign page and donation form builders, embeddable forms, recurring giving, peer-to-peer fundraising, event registration, ticketing and check-in, SSL-secured payment collection and automated donation receipting, plus an analytics and optimization capability marketed as GoFundMe Intelligence that personalizes ask amounts, giving frequencies and prompts.
Go-to-market
Marketed to nonprofits through demo requests and self-serve campaign and form building, supported by published customer case studies with organizations such as the American Cancer Society, Direct Relief and Joni and Friends.
Nonprofit organizations of varying sizes, including large national charities, disaster relief organizations and community and disability-focused nonprofits.
Geography
Headquartered in San Diego, United States. Donation forms on the platform accept billing addresses from a global list of countries and territories, and customer campaigns include US-based nonprofits.
History
Operating as Classy, the fundraising platform was acquired by GoFundMe in 2022, following GoFundMe's earlier acquisitions of CrowdRise in 2017 and YouCaring in 2018 and the launch and subsequent 2021 shutdown of GFMCharity. In 2025 the Classy brand was retired and the product was rebranded as GoFundMe Pro, presented as GoFundMe's nonprofit-dedicated offering combining Classy's campaign tooling with access to GoFundMe's donor community.
Compiled by commissioned research from 16 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Competitors · 3
by search overlap
Companies competing with Donate Now for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 14
launches, deals, and filingsGoFundMe announced it was combining GoFundMe's nonprofit offering and Classy into a single platform called GoFundMe Pro, retiring the Classy name, with branding and platform updates rolling out through the year.
Classy was rebranded as GoFundMe Pro, positioned as a nonprofit-dedicated fundraising platform connected to GoFundMe's donor community.
The acquisition closed, with Classy operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of GoFundMe under CEO Tim Cadogan; Chris Himes remained CEO of Classy reporting to Cadogan. Depelsha McGruder, previously on Classy's board, joined the GoFundMe board as an independent director.
GoFundMe signed a definitive agreement on 6 January 2022 to acquire Classy in an all-equity deal with undisclosed terms, expected to close in the first quarter of 2022 subject to regulatory approval.
GoFundMe acquired Classy as part of a series of moves into the nonprofit fundraising market that also included CrowdRise (2017) and YouCaring (2018).
Raised $118 million in Series D funding and announced plans to reincorporate as a Public Benefit Corporation. The round was aimed at accelerating product development, doubling the product and engineering organization over two years and entering new markets such as corporate giving.
$118M source ↗
As part of the Series D announcement, co-founder and CEO Scot Chisholm moved to a full-time executive chairman role leading M&A and new market expansion, while longtime board member and COO Chris Himes became CEO.
Classy became a certified B Corp in December 2020, later reincorporating as a Public Benefit Corporation in connection with its Series D.
Closed $30 million in Series C funding from JMI Equity, Mithril Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Bullpen Capital.
$30M source ↗
Round intended to triple the size of a 15-person engineering team and expand international functionality; the company had 80 employees at the time.
$18M source ↗
After working with a San Diego accelerator/the CONNECT incubator, Chisholm relaunched Classy as a technology company with co-founders Pat Walsh and Marshall Peden plus developer Peter Nystrom and designer Joe Callahan; SaaS products covering peer-to-peer fundraising, crowdfunding, events, supporter management and marketing automation launched in 2011.
The company created the Classy Awards to recognize nonprofits addressing social challenges; the eighth annual awards were scheduled for June 2018.
Scot Chisholm and friends organized a charity pub crawl in San Diego to raise money for cancer research/the American Cancer Society; the event raised $1,000 and its name, inspired by the film Anchorman, became the company name. Chisholm assembled an early system described as a combination of Evite, PayPal and Myspace to manage events.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structure▸Research sources · 16
primary sources listed
- Donate Nowclassy.org · web
- Classy (company) - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org · web
16 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Donate Now do?
- Nonprofit online fundraising platform, formerly Classy and now GoFundMe Pro, offering donation forms, campaigns and events.
- Who founded Donate Now?
- Donate Now was founded by Patrick Walsh, Scot Chisholm, Joe Callahan.
- Who are Donate Now's investors?
- Donate Now's investors include Bullpen Capital, Hinge Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Rethink Impact, Thirty Five Ventures (35V), Mithril Capital Management.
- How much funding has Donate Now raised?
- Donate Now has disclosed $63.6M raised across 3 of its 7 known rounds.
- Who acquired Donate Now?
- Donate Now was acquired by GoFundMe.
- Where is Donate Now headquartered?
- Donate Now is headquartered in San Diego, US.