Clam Lorenz, GM of Social Innovation, PayPal

We are proud to be a secure and trusted way for people around the world to support the causes that matter in their lives.  Whether the funds are for aid to a faraway community impacted by a natural disaster, or for a school, church or civic mission around the corner, millions of people donate every year with PayPal.

While most causes that use PayPal are easy to love and support, some are controversial.

To help us make fair and balanced decisions we choose to enable the vast majority of fundraising campaigns, no matter what our personal views might be about the causes they support. We will only stop PayPal being used for fundraising if the effort violates the law or our policies.

So what are our policies and how are they applied?

We will not allow PayPal to be used by a fundraising effort that promotes hate, a call to violence, or illegal activity. We will however permit fundraising efforts for the legal defense funds or cost of living expenses for people charged, but not convicted of a crime. People who are convicted of a crime can also use PayPal to raise funds for their legal defense efforts.

We have a system in place that allows anyone to alert us to an account you believe may violate our Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) by sending the site’s URL to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We will carefully review each site you bring to our attention. Out of respect for the privacy of all of our customers, we will not share publicly the results of our investigations, but we will end our relationship with any campaigns found to be in violation of our AUP.