GiveWP is the leading WordPress plugin for nonprofits and fundraisers. It handles one-time donations, recurring giving, donation campaigns with goal tracking, and donor management – all within WordPress without a monthly platform fee. The free version covers the core donation functionality that most nonprofit websites need. Add-ons ($49-249/year) extend it with features like Stripe recurring donations, peer-to-peer fundraising, Salesforce integration, and donor management tools.
What GiveWP Covers for Free
GiveWP free is more capable than most people realise. It includes: unlimited donation forms with custom fields, donation goal display with visual progress bars, donor names displayed on the form (encouraging others), multiple payment gateways (PayPal Standard, Test Gateway for development), customizable email receipts, and a donor management dashboard showing all donations with searchable donor records. For a nonprofit that primarily accepts one-time PayPal donations, the free version may be all that is needed.
Where free falls short: recurring/subscription donations require the Recurring Donations add-on. Stripe payment processing (significantly better than PayPal Standard for conversion) requires the Stripe add-on. These two add-ons together cost $148/year and cover most nonprofits’ payment needs completely.
Step 1: Create Your First Donation Form
Go to Donations -> Add Form. Configure:
- Form title – displayed above the form. Make it specific: “Support Our Animal Shelter” rather than “Donate”
- Donation options – set suggested amounts ($10, $25, $50, $100, custom). Research shows that presenting three to four preset amounts with one custom option increases average donation size compared to a blank amount field
- Default donation level – which preset amount is pre-selected. Set to your second-highest amount – pre-selection anchors donors at a higher giving level
- Goal – enable a campaign goal with progress bar if this form is for a specific campaign rather than general giving
Need help setting this up? Describe your project and get a free estimate.
Step 2: Configure Payment Gateways
Go to Donations -> Settings -> Payment Gateways. PayPal Standard is active by default. For better conversion, add Stripe via the Stripe add-on – donors stay on your site to complete payment rather than being redirected to PayPal, which reduces abandonment. Stripe also supports credit cards directly without requiring donors to have a PayPal account.
For recurring donations, the Stripe add-on supports subscription billing. Configure recurring donation intervals (monthly, quarterly, annually) in the form’s donation options when recurring is enabled.
Step 3: Donor Management
Go to Donations -> Donors. GiveWP maintains a donor record for each person who gives, tracking their donation history, total giving, and contact information. The donor management interface lets you search donors, view individual giving histories, send custom emails to specific donors, and export donor lists for reporting or integration with CRM systems.
For nonprofits with major donor programs, the donor management dashboard replaces spreadsheet-based donor tracking. Every donation appears in the donor’s record automatically, giving fundraising staff a complete giving history without manual data entry.
Step 4: Form Embedding
GiveWP generates a shortcode for each form: [give_form id="X"]. Embed this on any page. Common placements: a dedicated Donate page, the homepage hero section for a fundraising campaign, and in sidebars on high-traffic content pages. The form adapts to its container width, so it works in both full-width and sidebar placements.
Optimising Donation Form Conversion
Three evidence-based changes improve donation form completion rates. First, the default donation amount matters more than most nonprofit marketers realise. Pre-selecting $50 instead of $25 raises average gift size without reducing completion rate. Test different default amounts and measure the impact on average gift over 30-day periods.
Second, form placement affects conversion. A donation form embedded directly in the page content converts better than a form behind a “Donate Now” button link. Visitors who must click a button to see the form have an additional decision point to abandon the process. Where possible, embed the form directly on high-traffic pages rather than linking to a separate donation page.
Third, social proof increases giving. Display the campaign goal and current progress visually – “We have raised $8,200 of our $10,000 goal” activates goal completion psychology. Showing recent donor names (with permission) and total donor count signals that real people are contributing. GiveWP’s goal and donor display settings configure both without custom code.