Is Crowdfunding Charity? Exploring Contemporary Meanings of “Philanthropy”

Over the course of nearly a decade, a strong body of academic research has emerged showing that the benefits of personal crowdfunding via GoFundMe and similar platforms are neither as easily attained nor as evenly distributed among users as many would hope. In this response to Lukk et al.'s (2025) article “Disrupting Philanthropy? A Reality Check for Digital Crowdfunding,” I extend the authors' discussion of the harmful effects of the for‐profit crowdfunding industry on equality, campaigner/beneficiary autonomy, and the spread of misinformation by examining how crowdfunding has shifted the meaning(s) ascribed to “philanthropy” in Western societies.