Too many nonprofits, consultants and vendors treat donor lists like handfuls of slot machine tokens. They trade them, rent them, share them. Too often, they exploit them.

And now, this bad behavior it’s catching up and harming us all.

Among the worst in the rogues gallery staining both the charitable and political sectors are the so-called “Scam PACs”. The Agitator has called them out about them before:phony political committees that claim to champion candidates or causes but use donor dollars for personal gain or lavish parties. They promise matching gifts that never materialize, tug at heartstrings with apocalyptic headlines, and prey on trust. It’s digital sewage, pumped straight into the inboxes of people who once believed their $20 made a difference​​.

But the problem isn’t limited to outright scams. Sloppy, careless, and callous handling of lists—or the outright failure to respect of donor preferences is just as pervasive—and just as damaging. In swapping or renting their lists  too many organizations routinely ignore the privacy rights of donors, failing to honor opt-in or opt-out requests regarding the use of their names. This isn’t just unethical; it’s illegal in 21 states. Yet the practice continues unabated, causing widespread frustration and dissatisfaction among donors and ethical fundraisers.

This disregard for donor preferences comes at a steep cost: rising donor frustration, plummeting retention rates, and a rapidly dwindling number of supporters willing to engage at all. It’s not just the crooked players undermining trust; it’s also the complacent ones who treat donor files like tokens for a dystopian fundraising slot machine.

The Damage ActBlue Enables

One organization at the center of this growing crisis is ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s leading online donation platform. Critics charge that for years, it has enabled spammers and scammers to exploit its system, making donor contact information too easily available to bad actions willing to bombard  supporters with deceptive appeals. Critics have highlighted these failures as a betrayal of trust.

Josh Nelson, CEO of Civic Shout, put it bluntly: “Donors deserve to be able to contribute to campaigns and causes without having to wonder if they’re being taken advantage of. But for far too long, ActBlue has largely looked the other way while spammers and scammers sell donors’ contact information and use deceptive tactics to solicit donations. That needs to change”​.

In a letter signed by 150 nonprofit organizations and fundraising professionals, the signatories warned: “Given ActBlue’s pivotal role in Democratic and progressive fundraising, it has a special responsibility to play a leadership role in protecting donors from deceptive practices. And while ActBlue has taken some helpful steps in that direction, we believe it can and must do more.” The letter outlined reforms like stricter enforcement of donor privacy, transparency in donation pages, and limits on self-dealing​.

Scam PACs: The Dirty Details

Meanwhile, Scam PACs operate as a parasitic underbelly, siphoning money through misleading appeals. Groups with generic names claim to support well-known candidates or causes, promising 400% or 700% matching gifts that don’t exist. Instead of funding meaningful action, these donations are often funneled into exorbitant “consulting fees” or personal luxuries like lavish parties at the Las Vegas Grand Prix​​.

Sam Stein of The Bulwark exposed one such PAC, which spent $736,545 on event space rental and $41,235 on a VIP suite while telling donors it was struggling to meet its fundraising goals. Stein warned, “For far too many people, these exploitative tactics have become synonymous with the work of responsible actors doing real organizing and campaigning. We have a movement-wide problem here, and we need movement-wide solutions”​​.

What Needs to Happen

The abuse and neglect aren’t just annoying—they’re destructive. Donors who receive incessant spam or see their preferences ignored often stop giving altogether. As one donor expressed: “Just because I donate to one Democratic nominee doesn’t mean I wish to donate to every candidate in the nation. Knowing that I’ll face a deluge of spam actively discourages me from donating at all”​.

This crisis demands urgent action:

1. Transparency: Require non-official entities soliciting donations to clearly disclose their independence from any political party or candidate.
2. Accountability: Set a maximum threshold for how much entities using platforms like ActBlue can spend with companies that own or control the “nonprofit” of phony “campaign committee” entity.
3. Privacy Protections: Enforce donor opt-in/opt-out rights rigorously and make violations subject to penalties.
4. Monitoring and Enforcement: Regularly audit entities using donation platforms and remove bad actors before they can harm donors.

A Call to Action

It’s way past time to wake up and call out not only the crooked but the sloppy and callous. The organizations, CRMs, brokers, and consultants who treat donor files with careless disregard are poisoning the well for everyone.

Every bad actor and careless operator damages all of us. Fundraisers and nonprofit execs should be in the business of building trust, not destroying it. Nonprofits, politicians, CRMs, payment processors, consultants, and brokers must decide which side of the line they stand on.

If we don’t fix this now and urge that violators be exposed and prosecuted, we’ll lose more than donors—we’ll lose the very foundation of what makes our work matter. To this end it’s essential for all of us to be vigilant in guarding the use of our lists and to call out and boycott the bad operators.

Let’s clean up this unethical sewage before it drowns us all.

Roger