How to accept donations on a WordPress site

Use a PayPal button or payment link if you only need a simple way to collect occasional one-off gifts. PayPal sends the donor to its own checkout, so this route is quick but gives you limited control over the form, donor records and reporting. PayPal also supports recurring donations through its donation setup.

Choose a donation plugin if you need Stripe or PayPal forms, custom amounts, recurring giving, receipts, campaign goals, donor history or exports. Donation plugins such as GiveWP and Charitable provide forms that can be placed with a block or shortcode and connect to payment gateways.

Create or confirm the payment account that will receive the money. For PayPal, use a Business account and create a Donate button or payment link. For Stripe, create the account, complete its verification requirements and prepare the account keys or connection requested by your chosen plugin.

Do not paste secret Stripe keys into a public page or theme file. Add them only in the plugin's protected settings, and use test mode first where the plugin and gateway support it.

Add a page called Donate or Support us. Explain what the money pays for, show suggested amounts, allow a custom amount where appropriate, and state whether the gift is one-off or recurring.

For the manual route, insert the PayPal Payment Buttons block in the WordPress editor, or paste the payment link into a button or Custom HTML block. PayPal documents both the block method and the option to copy payment code into WordPress.

For the plugin route, create a donation form, connect the selected gateway and insert the form's block or shortcode on this page. Keep the form above the fold on mobile, but include enough context that visitors know who receives the money.

Turn on the donor receipt or confirmation email supplied by your payment tool or plugin. Set the sender name, reply-to address, subject and thank-you message, then add a link back to your site or the next action you want donors to take.

Only add donors to marketing emails when you have a lawful basis and clear consent for that use. Keep donation receipts separate from promotional messages. Send a test donation and check that the donor, site administrator and any email service receive the expected messages.

Decide where donation records will live. A basic PayPal button leaves payment management mainly in PayPal, while a donation plugin may store donation details in WordPress and offer searches, exports or donor dashboards. GiveWP and Charitable both describe donor management and payment integrations, but the exact fields depend on the form and gateway you configure.

Publish a privacy notice explaining what donor information you collect, why you collect it, who processes the payment and how long you retain records. Collect only the fields you need. Do not store card numbers in WordPress.

Make a small test donation from a different account or use the gateway's test mode. Check the amount, currency, one-off or recurring status, thank-you page, receipt email, mobile layout and appearance in the payment dashboard.

The common Friday failure is a form that looks correct but never records a completed donation because the gateway connection or webhook is wrong. If recurring gifts or automatic status updates matter, verify the plugin's webhook or gateway connection and confirm that a completed test appears in both systems before promoting the page.

If the donation experience needs campaign pages, cause layouts and a fundraising-focused design, Fundrize is a suitable theme-based shortcut. It includes donation functionality through Caritable, ready-made cause layouts and demo content, so it is aimed at sites where presentation matters alongside the donation form.

Install the theme only after confirming that its included Caritable setup supports the payment gateways, recurring options and donor workflow you need. The theme does not remove the need to configure the payment account, email messages, privacy notice and tests.