Over $175k in donations to Spokane-area nonprofits withheld as fundraising platform files for bankruptcy

Ten Eastern Washington and North Idaho nonprofits are cutting costs and services after a popular online fundraiser and management company folded without refunding them over $175,000 in community donations.

The donations were for nonprofits supporting people with Down syndrome, youth, athletes who have disabilities and many more. Some organizations have said their future is in doubt.

The Shadle Park Boosters, which raises money for Shadle Park High School student events, lost $50,000, the biggest loss in the Inland Northwest.

Losses in the Spokane area are only a fraction of the total $30 million that seemingly disappeared across the country as the platform Flipcause, which allows small nonprofits to manage their fundraisers and websites for a small cut of profits, filed for bankruptcy. The California-based company acted in a similar way to GoFundMe, another platform on which people or organizations can raise money in exchange for a small cut of the total profit.

Down Syndrome Connections Northwest, a small nonprofit in Hayden, had used the platform for years to organize community events. With a yearly budget of around $60,000, the largest fundraiser of the year is the "Step Up for Down Syndrome Walk," which raised about $20,000 in 2025.

"We requested our money from the walk in 2025, and usually we get it within a week," founder and board President Susan Villelli said. But the money never came, "and then, you know, you kind of start doing the panic thing of 'Where is our money?' You start going online like, 'What is happening?' And then you realize they're in this situation with the state of California, and now there's a class-action lawsuit and it's pretty ugly."

DS Connections Northwest is only one of the 10 local nonprofits listed in court documents as missing over $1,000 in donations after Flipcause filed for bankruptcy. The donations made on Flipcause were not ever to the charities, the platform's Executive Director Emerson Ravyn testified, per reporting by the Maynard Institute's Oakland Voices publication. Rather, Ravyn argued donors were making payments to Flipcause.

Flipcause's bankruptcy trustee, Jeffery Testa, did not respond to a request for comment concerning the $175,000 in missing donations for Inland Northwest organizations and nearly $30 million from groups across the country. As of December, Flipcause's lone bank account held only $70,000, court documents show.

"There was no indication from staff at Flipcause we worked with that there was an issue until we just didn't get our money," Villelli said. "And it's literally our money. It's not money that we are requesting for a service they provided. It is our money that the donors gave us as a tax-deductible donation through their website - to DS connections - that they have held."

DS Connections began in 2009 as an informal social group, born from the need for parents to connect. When more than 100 people showed for a "buddy walk," Villelli and co-founder Cheryl Roberts decided to create a nonprofit, expanding focus to include medical education about Down syndrome. In 2025, nearly 500 attendees, including more than 40 with Down syndrome, participated in the buddy walk - now called Step Up for Down Syndrome .

But Flipcause's bankruptcy cost DS Connections nearly all of the donations raised from that walk - a third of the organization's annual budget, Executive Director Terry Russo said. Events have been canceled, future activities may require payment for tickets, and volunteers will have to be thrifty in their planning efforts moving forward.

Russo is more concerned with the low pay for administrative roles, though. She and a nurse are the only paid employees in the organization, and Russo is only able to make ends meet with her husband's stable income. She worries what would happen if either of them were to go out of commission, the nurse in particular "working for an amount that most people wouldn't work for."

Still, using air quotes, Villelli said that DS Connections was one of the "fortunate nonprofits," as it was able to get about $5,000 of its money out before Flipcause declared bankruptcy.

DS Connections had never had a problem with Flipcause before, Villelli said. It was a sentiment echoed by Teresa Skinner, executive director for ParaSport Spokane, which found itself with over $40,000 in limbo after the bankruptcy.

"That's the saddest part," Skinner said. "They were so nice to work with in the beginning and so responsive."

ParaSport Spokane provides sporting opportunities for about 200 athletes with disabilities. Accessible equipment is not cheap, Skinner said, and grants have been harder to find recently.

Skinner said the nonprofit had used Flipcause since its founding in 2013. At most, the donations would take a couple of days to come in back then. She began struggling with money transfers around last year.

"It's the one thing you think, 'No one would ever do that,' " Skinner said of Flipcause leadership.

" Not to a nonprofit. "

Foster child support organization Spokane Angels - a Spokane Valley chapter of the National Angels - also used Flipcause. Local Executive Director Kelli Daschbach said the national-level organization was hit hard by the loss of donations.

Though there were only $1,500 in the Spokane Angels Flipcause account (not an insignificant amount, Daschbach said), more devastating was the loss of automatic, recurring donors signed on with the Flipcause-supported site.

Repeat donors were the primary funding source for the Angels, Daschbach said, and only about half have recommitted to the organization. She said the Valley chapter is in danger of closing entirely.

Omak's Foundation for Youth Resiliency and Engagement had experienced problems with Flipcause from the get -go. Finance lead Dave Halleran said he saw red flags as soon as he joined the foundation in 2024, including no apparent customer service hotline and delays in releasing donations. Essentially, he said, organizations paid $200 per month "for the privilege of not being paid."

The Omak group has been in the process of leaving Flipcause already when the news of bankruptcy broke. Halleran said that the nonprofit was able to remove "tens of thousands" of dollars just prior, keeping total loss to just under $6,000.

Though it could have been worse, Halleran said that "every dollar that we don't recover has an impact."

The Omak foundation is home to a youth recreation center and a social service matching program. While free for anybody ages 12-24 to show up and hang out, the nonprofit particularly offers support to youth struggling with homelessness, drug abuse, difficult home lives and other life circumstances.

"Like most nonprofits, it's a struggle," Halleran said, adding that the lost $6,000 would have been for hiring youth to help out in the rec space over the summer, or possibly investing in a money market for the future.

Graham Lilly, board president of the Rendezvous In Moscow nonprofit, said he has followed along with legal proceedings in the bankruptcy case and finds it "not only just frustrating, but incredibly sad how many nonprofits were really impacted by this."

"We're running a music festival. We aren't working with children with cancer like some of these other nonprofits," he said. "It's unfortunate for us, but for these other people it's literally a matter of life and death."

Rendezvous In Moscow is the nonprofit behind the annual East City Park music and art festival, Rendezvous in the Park. It lost just over $6,000 in the bankruptcy, and Lilly said that Flipcause had continued to charge them platform fees after declaring bankruptcy. He doesn't have high hopes of seeing any of the community's donation money return, nor of any kind of repercussions for the company.

"We're doing our best to rebound from it," he said, adding that the team has made some moves to cut costs for this year's festival, which in the past has attracted around 1,200 visitors per day over a weekend in July. "But again, in the context of Flipcause, they ripped off some people who really needed that money. We can recover. I'm sure some of those other nonprofits will not be able to."

Spokane's Shadle Park High School student fundraising group Shadle Park Boosters had the most expensive loss in the area with nearly $50,000 tied up in Flipcause. The money was raised from two craft shows and a golf tournament - the fairs being the two largest fundraisers of the year.

Immediate past board President Kristen Eikstadt said the money is raised by school families and alumni to fund student clubs and extracurriculars like athletics, music, DECA club, debate team and more. The group has had to turn down student requests for funding after the loss. She told a story similar to Villelli, in that the nonprofit had reached out to Flipcause for their donations only to find out that the company was embroiled in a class-action lawsuit and bankruptcy claim on the other side of the country.

"It's heartbreaking that a platform that's supposed to be helping small nonprofits raise funds turned out not to be," she said.

Flipcause's assets were purchased by another fundraising platform called Software4Nonprofits in March. All nonprofit members who spoke with The Spokesman-Review said they have moved on to other companies for their software needs. They all have low hopes of seeing a substantial return of their donation money - if optimistic enough to hope for any at all.

Spokane Angels will hold a 5K fun run on May 31 and a golf tournament on Aug. 3 to help recoup funds. DS Connections is participating in Idaho Gives, an annual donation event in Idaho put on by the Idaho Community Foundation, and have raised over $5,000 back so far. Eikstadt said the Shadle Park Boosters are continuing to raise money via smaller events.

"(We're) living on a prayer," Daschbach said of Spokane Angels.

Though not overly hopeful for seeing any donations return, most nonprofits say they are committed to trying their best to recover their communities' money.

"When you're talking 29 million, our total $20,000 looks so tiny. But in the big picture, it's a lot for us," Villelli said. "We are not going to rest until we do what we can to get this money back because we - these donors donated to us. They didn't donate to Flipcause."

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