Many non-profits use WordPress because it’s minimal ease to manage content. What we are asked from non-profit groups most often is about WordPress donate plugins. Donations are what helps keep the non-profit in motion. An important thing to remember is that donors care about how donations are collected. When people are new to your non-profit website. Or if it’s their first time discovering you, donating online can be a challenge. Keep these two main points in mind, trust and process.
First, there’s the issues of trust because you are asking for money. In regards to trust, people are willing to donate, but suspicious about who they are giving their money to. There needs to be a comfort level that the monies will reach the intended people. And not administrative costs, salaries or the like.
Second, think about your process. What steps are necessary for the person to complete before they can click the “submit” button. If it’s not smooth, they’ll abandon the site, and go to another cause.
Here is a list of WordPress Donate Plugins to think about using on your website to increase trust. And make online giving a smooth and easy process for your websites visitors.
1) Give
Give is a plugin that is very robust and is built by the folks at WordImpress! Give doesn’t take any fees from each donation and works in WordPress. You install the plugin, create your form, and start collecting. You’ll want to check out the add-ons to connect to a payment gateway. The price for the add-ons is pretty reasonable for the returns.
Here’s an explainer video from the site:
Features Include:
- Accept single, custom, and multi-level donations
- Robust reporting features and donor management
- Goal tracking for your campaigns
- Single-page, simple, and hassle-free donor giving
- Zero commission charges
- Own all your donation data
- Easy to customize and enhance
- Looks great with nearly all WordPress themes
- Customizable emails for donors and admins
- PayPal Standard and Offline Payments included for free
- Custom user roles for administration
Download the WordPress Donate plugin, Give, here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/give/
2) Charitable
The Charitable plugin is by Studio 164a. An Australian Firm that has shifted focus toward the Charitable plugin only. It’s a simple donation plugin. And is as easy to use as Give. Except for no add-ons required for connecting to a payment gateway. But, most add-ons are $99 and it’s a yearly cost that includes support.
If you head over to the Charitable website you can ask for a demo to see all the add-ons and features. I’ll leave the link below, or you can find them from the WordPress Plugin page:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/charitable/
Extensions available are as follows:
- Recurring Donations – Accept monthly donations on your website.
- Ambassadors – Add peer-to-peer fundraising or crowdfunding to your website, with front-end campaign submission.
- Newsletter Connect – Add donors to your mailing list automatically. Supports MailChimp and MailPoet.
- Easy Digital Downloads – Accept donations with Easy Digital Downloads. Compatible with any EDD payment gateway.
- Stripe – Accept credit card donations on your website.
- Authorize.Net – Accept credit card donations with Authorize.Net.
- PayUMoney – Take donations with PayUMoney, a payment gateway for Indian non-profits and organizations.
- PayFast – The most popular payment gateway for South African organizations.
- Anonymous Donations – Allow people to make donations anonymously.
- User Avatars – Let your donors upload their own profile photo to your site, instead of using their Gravatar profile.
- Simple Updates – Add updates about your fundraising campaigns.
3) Seamless Donations
Seamless plugin was adopted in March of 2015 by David Gewirtz at ZATZLabs. Which started in 1998 as a technology magazine publisher. And continues to provide development and support.
Features of the plugin include:
- Campaign goals: You can set campaign goals that are visible to website visitors.
- Recurring donations: This feature allows you to let visitors donate automatically on a regular basis.
- Progress bars: You can show customizable progress bars, demonstrating to visitors how far or close you are to reach the fundraising goal.
- Drag & drop form builder: Add the fields you need (i.e. textboxes, checkboxes, and radio buttons).
See a explainer video for more below:
You can download the WordPress Donation plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/seamless-donations/
Each of these plugins has its own pros and cons. Take a look and decide if these, or another, best suit the needs of your organization and it’s donor base. Keep up the good fight!
Do you have a favorite plugin to accept donations? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll review and add it to the list here!
