There's a trade off from being quick to donate to any apparently righteous cause vs. being analytical. On one hand a quick donator is viewed as very generous and empathetic. On the other hand they can be easily fooled. A slow donator is seen as colder and less empathetic, however, they tend to get more good done over time.
I've always found the change.org donation solicitation a bit shady (you're essentially paying for an ad on the site for the petition), but I have no idea how the donators reached for comment could not know what the donation is. It says very clearly you're "Chipping in" to get the petition noticed more. If they're confused on that I don't know how.
Change.org is just an email harvester.
Mods: the title of this submission ("Change.org solicits donations under George Floyd petition, keeps money") is a blatant case of editorializing, in violation of HN guidelines.
What exactly is incorrect?
Seems to say the same thing albeit truncated; there is a char limit.
"Change.org doesn't donate the money raised through its record-breaking George Floyd petition — and some donors say they feel misled"
I had copied the title from the article at the time of posting, that's literally the title if you search Google:
Ah, well, I guess business insider is to blame then. The way this title is written initially gave me the very strong impression that change.org has deceived people by pretending to collect donations for one purpose and then keeping them for itself. But in reality the story is people are so dumb they will click to donate $3 without paying any attention to a sentence or two describing what the donation is for -- and then get mad when they find out later.
I don’t think people are dumb, the language is clearly structured so that it is ambiguous to take advantage of people who care about a cause.