11 WordPress Donation Plugins for charity & Help

Dec 5, 2022
WordPress donation plugins

It's not begging when you're offering some reward! Numerous professions produce the art of happiness, creativity, or world change, all without being able to market their products or earn profits like regular businesses.

Sometimes, it's an activist for the rainforest stopping large companies from tearing down trees. There are times when a blogger creates inspirational articles on a daily basis. From writers to designers, and even politicians, sometimes selling products or services doesn't count.

You might think that you're expected to travel and get rich people to give you cash, however all you require is a WordPress donation plugin and some other components.

Why is WordPress Such an Attractive Platform to Charities?

This is Open Source and Free

It's Scalable

No matter how large or modest your cause is today, you want to pick a platform that will support your growth for future years. With more than 120 updates of WordPress that are listed in the Codex as well as a decade of development history, WordPress is tough to be beat.

It is a Large Users Base and Support System

It's Great for Communities

If your organization relies on community involvement, WordPress has you covered there as well. BuddyPress installs quickly and easily through the administrator panel. The free plug-in, BuddyPress, lets you build and develop a community, or social network from inside your site. You could potentially use BuddyPress to build and maintain relationships with internal teams who are focused on different fundraising efforts as well as community-related events, projects and projects.

It's Highly Customizable

From minor color adjustments to complex layouts and structural changes, WordPress has all the bases covered. Virtually every aspect of WordPress can be modified in accordance with the specific requirements of the charity you run. Many basic changes can be tackled within just a few minutes, while the more intricate changes will need a skilled developer who is who is adept at tackling code.

It offers a wide selection of Themes

The Things You'll Need To Accept Donations Through Your Site

  • WordPress  WordPress Get the renowned CMS for free and manage any type of website that you wish.
  • Domain name - This is your name for your non-profit site. It's usually similar to the name of your nonprofit or charity.
  • An NGO or charity themeYou can purchase a normal WordPress theme. However, specific ones for charities have donations buttons, scheduling tools, and information sections for raising money.
  • A WordPress Donation Plugin - - We'll discuss the plugins in the next section.
  • Payment gateway is the method that process and receives payments through the donation plugin.

It might seem intimidating initially, but generally don't need to think about hosting after it's configured. The same goes for WordPress and your domain name. The only element that requires maintenance is the WordPress donation plugin. And it's due to the fact that you're taking donations and contemplating innovative ways to raise more money for your organization.

The Best WordPress Donation Plugins for 2022

This is a brief outline of the subject matter we'll cover. If you're interested in learning about the primary benefits of every WordPress donation plugin, read on.

1. Give - Donation plugin and Fundraising Platform

It can be difficult to choose your favorite, however when it comes to the WordPress donation plugins this isn't the case at all. This Giving donation tool is far above the competition with regards to pricing, beauty, functionality, and the ability to add on. The plugin makes money with the freemium model, but no add-ons are pushed onto users. In fact, most non-profits and charitable organizations can do fine by using the donation form that is standard with no add-ons.

As you might notice in the image below (and the examples on the website of Give,) the developers are putting a lot of effort into creating stunning forms. They're better than most of the other plug-ins available as there's little requirement to modify them.

Give WordPress plugin
Give WordPress plugin

The cost-free WordPress donation plugin features slick donation forms, full-featured reports, full donor management, and the possibility to integrate with any of your preferred themes or pages builders. In my previous post that most businesses don't need anything more than this.

But, it is possible to look into some or more of these packages that add on (starting at just $15 per month) or purchase each add-on separately.

No matter what your current payment method Here are some add-ons that you could choose from:

  • Recurring donations
  • Form field manager
  • Fee recovery
  • Tributes
  • PDF receipts
  • Google Analytics donation tracking
  • Zapier
  • Manual donations
  • There are many more

Why This WordPress Donation Plugin? Its standout features include:

  • The Give donation form is professional, and comes with reporting and donor management. It's all no cost.
  • The cost for adding ons is based on the ones you need.
  • The default donation forms include the basic functionality of recurring donations.
  • Place custom fields and goals on your donation forms in order to encourage more individuals to donate.
  • They can be customized and look great on any style, right out of the box.
  • It's not just the Give the documentation for support impressive however, there's a full page filled with demonstrations, before you have to pay any item. This is one of the most impressive WordPress plugin websites I've ever seen.
  • You don't get charged any transaction fees.

2. Charitable - Donation Plugin

Charitable Donation provides a free WordPress donation plugin, which includes support of geolocation, basic updates videos, user avatars, anonymous donations, and even one year of premium service. The creators ask you to "pay what you want" therefore you're given the choice of supporting the plugin, or download it for free.

If you look at the premium memberships here and you'll see they begin at $99 per year. They then go up to $249 for the year. This isn't a bad price package considering that you get access to a newsletter integration, gift aids, support to Easy Digital Downloads, and premium payment gateways.

Charitable WordPress plugin
Charitable WordPress plugin

The costliest version (the $249 per year plan) comes with a few of the following options:

  • Recurring donations
  • Peer to peer fundraising
  • Automated payments for crowdfunding
  • All the features you'd expect from the lower priced plans

Also, Charitable definitely stands out thanks to its distinct capabilities. We love the video clips and geolocation tools available in the version that is free. Also, it's nice to have anonymous donation support, since not everyone likes to see their name plastered all over the internet after a donation.

What is the reason behind this WordPress Donation plugin? Its standout features include:

  • Donations can be solicited based on the location.
  • Charitable doesn't charge transaction fees.
  • Make connections with the top payment gateways like Stripe, Authorize.net, PayUMoney as well as PayFast.
  • Peer-to-peer fundraising is a way for you to increase your reach.
  • About 15 extensions can be purchased to expand your donation form's functionality.
  • Send out campaign updates to your donors.
  • All the Pricing plans that are charitable allow one site license and 1 year premium customer service.

3. Donation to WooCommerce

Donation for WooCommerce plugin
Donation for WooCommerce

There is the option of displaying multiple fundraising campaigns at once on the donation tabs page. On the front end, the tabs are displayed as choices. Additionally, you are able to display the objective progress (fundraising bar) of your campaign. This can help improve the donation widget's functionality.

Moreover, you can showcase the summaries of your donation campaign (title and description) within the donation widget. Through Donation for WooCommerce, you can adjust the goal of your donation campaign. This way, you'll be able to monitor the progress and set the goal the campaign with just a click.

What is the reason behind this WordPress Donation plugin? Its standout features include:

  • Make use of the WooCommerce subscription extension to accept the payment of recurring donations.
  • Set a goal of how much contributions your campaign will be receiving before the date it comes to an end.
  • Users have the option of backing multiple campaigns simultaneously.
  • Make daily, weekly, or monthly monthly-recurring contributions.
  • Once the campaign has met the goal, display the campaign with a distinctive "thanks message."
  • The users have the choice of supporting different campaigns in one at a time.

4. Donations via PayPal

PayPal Donations might not seem like what you're searching for however, you'll be amazed at how smooth and efficient this little gem is. In fact, it seems natural that PayPal has the expertise to make donations correctly, as the company has been collecting donations for a long time.

I would recommend PayPal donations for anyone who appreciates the ease of PayPal products. All of the products offered by PayPal can be used by beginners, and it doesn't grow with the needs of your business.

PayPal Donations WordPress plugin
PayPal Donations WordPress plugin

Keep in mind, this WordPress donation plugin isn't developed by PayPal. It uses the payment processor, however there is no support for customers from PayPal.

That said, PayPal Donations adds a shortcode to donate on your WordPress dashboard. You can place the shortcode anywhere on the website page, or put the widget as an area like a footer or sidebar. It's that simple. it. It is essential to, naturally join your PayPal account, but that will take just minutes.

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What's the point of this WordPress Donation Plugin? The Standout Features:

  • It's the fastest and easiest way to get donations started on your site.
  • About 15 translations are already included in the plugin. This is mainly removing the requirement to install another translation software.
  • PayPal Donation buttons are already designed. PayPal Donation buttons are already designed for you. This cuts down on development time. It's also great since so many people recognize and trust the PayPal brand.
  • Shortcodes and widgets are simple to locate and can be added to pages either in a sidebar or post.

5. Seamless Donations

Similar to many other WordPress donation plugins, you can install Seamless Donations at no cost, and then purchase extensions and add-ons if needed. It is claimed by the developers that it's possible to have the plugin installed in 5 minutes. The only thing you need is a connection to your PayPal account, and a little fiddling in the settings.

Similar to the top donation plugins, Seamless Donations doesn't collect transaction fees. Instead, it earns revenue through add-on sales.

Seamless Donations WordPress plugin
The Seamless Donations plugin WordPress plugin

For the most basic functions, you could begin with recurring donation collection. After that, the plugin comes with tools to track donors and contributions. Thank you messages are also included in the feature-set, allowing you to thank certain VIP donors.

The Seamless Donations plugin comes with strong currency and language support, so it is more likely that you will receive donations from around the world.

Also, here's a list of the most popular accessories:

  • The Giving Level Manager
  • A more personalized thank you message
  • Remove donations, donors and even funds
  • Anti-spam
  • CSV export

Why this WordPress Donation WordPress Plugin? The Standout Features:

  • Donations that are recurring are integrated into the plugin, so there's no need to get an add-on.
  • Dozens of currency (like Thai Baht and Hungarian Forint) can be accepted. Same goes for translations.
  • This plugin makes use of typical post types for donations as well as funds, which makes it simpler to keep track of what's happening on the donation website.

6. WooCommerce Donation Plugin

If you're currently running an online store, or would like to make one part of your charity/non-profit site, it's worth installing the WooCommerce Donation Plugin to accept donations through your eCommerce store. It is a basic function that is to add a donation like a normal product where the customer then puts the product in the shopping cart, pays for it but isn't given a tangible item for it. The other option is to include a donation field inside the shopping cart that prompts customers to give an additional amount on top of what they're paying for already.

WooCommerce Donation plugin
WooCommerce Donation plugin

The shopping cart will receive any kind of donation, then it is added to the total of the purchaser. The reports are provided on the back end, from where you can decide the percentage of your income is earned from donations as well as how much comes through regular sales.

Many non-profits already sell merchandise like hats, mugs, and t-shirts. So why not add a donation feature to determine if the people who purchase it want to be even more kind?

Why this WordPress Donation WordPress Plugin? Its standout features include:

  • Nothing changes about the website, but it gives customers a chance to donate in addition to their purchases.
  • Simple reports guide your decisions about whether or not you want to continue a donation program. These are also great to determine where the funds are coming from.
  • It is possible to have the donation field be a drop-down with predefined value or even a blank field that allows users to enter into their own donation.
  • Campaigns may be named to facilitate more efficient tracking.
  • The WordPress donation plugin only costs one time fee of $18.

7. Smart Donations

Smart Donations is an WordPress plugin with very simple Donation buttons. These buttons can be placed anyplace on your site as well as you could create goals that will convince more people to spend money.

The most important thing to bear in your head is that the trial version is virtually useless. But, premium membership plans start at only $19.99 and increase to $49.99. They are one-time payment plans without the need for spending anything in the future.

Donations Made Easy WordPress plugin
Donations Made Easy WordPress plugin

The Smart Donations plugin provides somewhat trendy donation buttons with a widget interface that allows placing your buttons in footers, sidebars and wherever else widgets can go.

The analytics and the recurring payment are nice, but the real reason I would look into this plugin is if I was looking to display how far I am away from achieving my goal. Similar to crowdsourcing platforms, in which you can set a target and generate buzz as the ticker is moved closer and closer to the goal.

What is the reason behind this WordPress Donation Plugin? Its standout features include:

  • Set goals that reveal your campaign progress and let customers know how far you are to achieving your goal.
  • It is mostly used by using buttons. You may also create forms when you want more info from your contributors.
  • Paying for recurring transactions is built in the plugin.
  • Donation walls are accessible. Donation walls are basically a wall of fame, which is where the most generous contributors are showcased on the website , and then acknowledged for their kindness.
  • There's no way to beat price on Smart Donations pricing.

8. Donorbox

Donorbox isn't just a WordPress donation plug-in. Sure, it works with WordPress extremely well, however, several other websites builders and CMSs could use Donorbox too. One of the advantages of Donorbox is that it embeds onto your website within seconds, then it displays a beautiful recurring donation system. The procedure takes around 15 minutes, and it's all built on those recurring donations.

Donorbox
Donorbox

The downside of Donorbox is the fee for transactions when you begin to collect more than $1000 per month. It's true that the 0.89 percent monthly fee is not a huge amount however, the majority of the WordPress donation plugins in this list aren't charging anything. Platform pricing is free until you hit that $1000 donation per month threshold. Then, the price starts at $26.70.

Even though the recurring payment option is heavily promoted on forms, you can still give your donors a one-time button for payment.

What's the point of this WordPress Donation Plugin? The most notable features:

  • It focuses on recurring payments, removing the need for you to buy an addition, but also helping guide your business to the one that's generally the most profitable.
  • You don't have to make a single payment if your monthly donations remain less than $1,000.
  • Accept transactions via credit card, ACH bank transfer, PayPal, and Stripe.
  • Each donor has full control over their recurring donation plans. It means that donors can take a payment every month and adjust it to only make one annual payment.
  • This WordPress donation plugin can be used with hundreds of currencies and languages, expanding your reach to the world.

9. Total Donations to WordPress

Update: This plugin has been removed from the market. In January of 2019, WordFence released findings about WordPress sites that were compromised due to a zero-day vulnerability that this plugin has. So, if you're employing it, we urge you to switch to an alternative.

The default donation feature allows users to specify what amount they'd like to donate. Additionally, there is a custom field that allows you to fill in any denomination.

Total Donations WordPress plugin
Total Donations WordPress plugin

The customer can select which campaign they would like to contribute money for as well as how often they would prefer to contribute. The settings for these are customisable in the backend of your own website. PayPal and Stripe transactions are accepted. Both offer excellent tracking for recurring payments. tools to see the amount your company can anticipate for the coming year.

Why This WordPress Donation plugin? The Standout Features:

  • The plugin has a solid drag-and-drop form maker to add items such as checkboxes, text fields, and radio buttons.
  • WordPress donation plugin is completely responsive. WordPress donation plug-in is flexible on both the front - and backends.
  • Auto-generated messages are sent out to the donors. The messages have shortcodes for filling in personal information.
  • The plugin supports a wide variety of languages.

10. Donation Content Locker

The Donation Content Locker does exactly as the title suggests it blocks content behind a payment wall until the user makes a donation. It's similar to the way certain online magazines restrict portions of the website until you register as a subscriber. Only difference is when you sign up as a subscriber, the users are considered to be donors.

Donation Content Locker WordPress plugin
Donation Content Locker WordPress plugin

The sole reason to use the Donation Content Blocker is if you wanted to exchange content in exchange for donations. If not then you should look into a different plugin.

Remember that you don't have to run a non-profit in order to make this useful. In fact, I can observe a lot of WordPress plugin creators making use of this. Bloggers could find it beneficial as well.

What's the point of this WordPress Donation Plugin? The Standout Features:

  • It is only available at the price of $15.
  • This effectively blocks specific areas of your website based on what you'd like to be compensated for.
  • The form of donation looks contemporary and takes only a couple of steps to collect a payment.
  • Accept payments through gateways like PayPal, Payza, Authorize.net as well as InterKassa.
  • Your data is secure thanks to an activation hyperlink that is sent to the donor through email.
  • You can block donors who share activation links.
  • The design process is driven by a WYSIWYG editor as well as shortcodes.

11. Donation Manager for WordPress

The Donation Manager for WordPress plugin embeds into a site with ease, handles donations on a website, and supports multiple payment gateways. The main feature that is notable is the unique payment gateway support. The gateways you can use are like InterKssa, Skrill, AlertPay, EgoPay, and Payza. A few people don't see these gateways as unique yet they're quite hard to find for those located in the US.

Donation Manager WordPress plugin
Donation Manager WordPress plugin

Therefore, if you'ren't interested in PayPal (or if your operation will not be recognized from PayPal,) this WordPress donation plugin can be the solution to your problem. Recent donations are shown on the page if you want, and there's the "target to achieve" section to give people an idea of the amount more money is needed. What's more is that users can choose the preferred payment method to make payments through.

Why This WordPress Donation Plugin? The most notable features:

  • Many payment gateways are available and many are specific or exclusive to particular regions.
  • Show how much you need to make.
  • Send thank-you messages to donors.
  • The plugin supports translation and can accept payment from any country over the world.

Narrowing Down to the WordPress Donation Plugins

  • For the best value choose the Give WordPress donation plugin
  • For the simplest setup - Choose PayPal Donations
  • for geolocation and support for video Select the Charitable plugin
  • For the most compatible currencies - Choose the Seamless Donation option.
  • For less common payment methods for Donation Manager - Select Donation Manager on WordPress
  • For locking your content choose to use the Donation Content Locker plug-in
  • To solicit donations using WooCommerce Select WooCommerce Donation Plugin
  • For more of a focus on recurring payments Consider Donorbox

If you've experienced any problems using any among the WordPress donation plugins mentioned above or you'd like to pose questions, please drop us a line in the comments below. If you're not sure, ensure you read the other comprehensive guide here: Creating A Charity WordPress Website: A Complete guide.

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