§ 100B.001.Definition

One definition for a 2025 chapter, and it turns entirely on intent.

"Fraudulent crowdfunding" means collecting donations on behalf of a donee with the intent to keep the donations instead of giving the donations to the donee on whose behalf the donations were made.

The intent must exist at collection. A person who raises money in good faith and later misappropriates it has committed a different wrong — conversion, or theft — and this chapter addresses the campaign that was false from the outset.

Crowdfunding platforms have made it trivial to raise money for a named beneficiary — a sick child, a disaster victim, a family in need — and equally trivial to do so for a beneficiary who will never see it.

The structure of the fraud is what makes an ordinary claim awkward. The donors gave money away and got what they paid for in one sense; the donee never had the money and so has lost nothing in the usual measure.

The chapter answers that by giving the claim to the donee and measuring damages by what the defendant collected — which the following sections do.

Note the chapter number. Two different chapters enacted in 2025 were both numbered 100B; this is the crowdfunding one, and a separate 100B covers financial exploitation by artificially generated media.