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There are many ways to earn money from your website. You can sell products, services, and enable paid subscriptions. However, you may even want to ask for donations, especially if you’re a non-profit (or on open-source developer). In this article, we’ll introduce you to the five best WordPress donation plugins you can use and discuss when it makes sense to use them.
Let’s get to it!
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Why Use a WordPress Donation Plugin
If you want to receive donations through your website, you need to be able to process payments. Ideally, the donation “checkout” process should work without the need for you to take direct action. What’s more, visitors should be able to decide how much to donate, and send the money within an instant:
A donation system can be likened to the equivalent functionality found in e-commerce websites. However, with donations, there aren’t usually specific products (although you may find hobbyist or open-source developers solicit donations for their work.) If you want to collect donations for multiple projects, “campaigns” will be more suitable:
Likewise, WordPress donation plugins add a lot of specific functionality for fundraising. You can have public goals and show visitors how much money you’ve collected, as well as share the names of your top donors (if they consent).
More advanced features include the ability to set up recurring donations, track donor history, submit receipts, and more. The easier to use your donation system is, the fewer headaches you’ll run into.
5 of the Best WordPress Donation Plugins
All of these plugins share the same base functionality: they enable you to process donations through your website. However, each of them offers different features. In the following few sections, we’ll break down the best WordPress donations plugins, and offer our take on what makes each one unique.
1. GiveWP
GiveWP is the most popular WordPress donation plugin by a long shot, and it’s easy to see why. The plugin enables you to set up multiple causes and receive variable donations for each of them. Plus, you can share the progress of each campaign with your site’s visitors.
Each cause you create has its own donation form that you can add practically anywhere on your website. You can set multiple donation levels and enable custom amounts for each project, as well as individual goals. At any time, you can review donations and filter them according to the payment method and date.
Speaking of payment methods, the plugin works with Stripe, PayPal, and also enables you to process offline donations. However, you can add more payment methods using premium add-ons, which also enables you to integrate the plugin with other third-party tools. GiveWP is also great for those who need to generate tax-deductible receipts.
Key Features:
- Process donations for multiple causes simultaneously.
- Create unique donation forms for each project.
- Offer multiple payment methods for each cause.
- Set variable or custom donation levels.
- Track the performance of your campaigns and review donor information.
- Share the progress of campaigns publicly.
Price: Free with premium add-ons | More Information
2. PayPal Donations
Sometimes you don’t need a complex donation system to collect funds through your website, just a simple donation button that lets visitors contribute. The PayPal Donations plugin is all about simplicity. PayPal is, in may corners of the world, the de facto option for online payments, with over 300 million monthly active users. If your website’s audience is located in a region with large share of PayPal users (such as North America, the UK, Germany, France, etc.) adding it as a payment processor is a no-brainer.
With PayPal Donations, you can add a simple PayPal donation button anywhere on your website using a shortcode or a widget. Visitors can decide how much they want to contribute, and you won’t have to deal with juggling multiple processors. It keeps the entire donation process simple for both parties.
Key Features:
- Enable PayPal donations for your website.
- Add a PayPal donation button almost anywhere on your site using shortcodes.
Price: Free | More Information
3. Charitable
As far as features go, Charitable offers a similar experience to GiveWP. You can create multiple campaigns, offer visitors the chance to donate an amount of their choosing (while offering suggestions), and show users how much money they’ve helped raise.
However, the primary difference here is that Charitable includes more options when it comes to donation forms. You can design forms that load in modals, on new pages, or within the same window as each campaign. Plus, donation forms automatically inherit your theme’s style.
With Charitable, you can collect donations both online (through PayPal) and offline. The plugin enables you to design pre-built emails including payment instructions for offline donations, as well as “Thank you” messages.
The plugin also offers several premium add-ons if you want to extend its functionality. You have options for several more payment processors, support for recurring donations, and an add-on that lets users cover payment fees, among many other options.
Key Features:
- Set up donation forms for multiple causes.
- Enable users to donate as much money as they want.
- Share information about each campaign’s progress publicly.
- Customize your donation forms’ behavior and style.
- Process payments via PayPal and offline methods.
Price: Free with premium add-ons | More Information
4. Donorbox
Donorbox is a relative newcomer to the field of WordPress donation plugins and it has a lot of interesting features to offer. You can create multiple donation forms for individual causes, and each form is fully customizable, including color schemes and logo options. Plus, you can an almost unlimited number of custom fields to each form.
The plugin supports both pre-configured and custom donation amounts, and enables you to process payments via PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. It also includes a donation-matching feature – handy for getting more money into the coffers if your campaigning for specific causes and other charities.
Donorbox is one of the only WordPress donation plugins that offers recurring payments out of the box and not as a premium add-on. For any donation form, you can give users the option to enable automatic payments each month. Recurring donors get access to a dashboard where they can see past payments and modify their details.
Key Features:
- Set up customizable donation forms.
- Add custom fields to each donation form.
- Enable visitors to send pre-determined or custom donation accounts.
- Process payments via PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
- Enable donation-matching if you want to contribute to third-party causes.
- Set up recurring payments for users.
Price: Free with premium integrations | More Information
5. Seamless Donations
The Seamless Donations plugin enables you to set up a single donation form visitors can use to contribute to one of the charities you’re promoting. At the donation stage, users can decide how much to give and where the money should go.
The plugin supports recurring donations out of the box and it also lets users make contributions in the name of others. As for payment processors, Seamless Donations works with both PayPal and Stripe.
Additionally, Seamless Donations enables you to configure automatic “thank you” emails for contributors. The plugin also works with many other third-party tools, including GoodBye Captcha and SendGrid.
Setting up your donation form is simple and the default design works seamlessly with most themes. If you want access to more advanced layouts and designs, there are additional premium add-ons available.
Key Features:
- Use a single donation form for multiple causes.
- Enable users to dedicate their contributions to other people.
- Process recurring payments.
- Set up automated “thank you” emails.
- Accept donations via PayPal and Stripe.
- Connect the donation plugin to third-party tools such as GoodBye Captcha and SendGrid.
Price: Free with premium add-ons | More Information
Conclusion
There are plenty of valid reasons to ask your website’s visitors for donations. You can use your site to collect money for worthwhile causes, fundraise for personal projects, and even just ask for contribute to your running costs. If you’re using WordPress, a suitable donation plugin to help you process those payments is going to be a good idea.
These are the five best WordPress donation plugins you can use for your website:
- GiveWP: This is an excellent option for non-profit organizations that want to collect funds for multiple causes simultaneously.
- PayPal Donations: Set up PayPal donation buttons in a matter of minutes.
- Charitable: With Charitable, you can create custom donation forms and process payments via PayPal.
- Donorbox: This donation plugin supports a broad range of payment methods and advanced form customization.
- Seamless Donations: With this tool, you can create single donation form and enable visitors to decide which cause to donate to.
Do you have any questions about how to collect donations using WordPress? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below!
Article thumbnail image by treety / shutterstock.com
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