Over the past decade, online donations have increased by 23%. It means that, if you’re thinking about accepting donations for your digital efforts, or fundraising for your upcoming project, it’s the right time! 🙂
Collecting online donations refers to the process of accepting money or financial support to a cause, organization, or individual through the Internet.
For instance, if you’re a digital creator, you can accept donations under names like ‘support my work’. Similarly, if you have a charity organization, you might set up a website where supporters can make recurring or one-time donations to support your ongoing projects.
In this article, we will cover the following aspects:
- When should you accept online donations?
- What are the types of online donations?
- How can you use Stripe to collect online donations?
- How can you create a donation form on WordPress using WP Full Pay?
- How can you add a Stripe page on your WordPress site?
What we’ll talk later in this article is WP Full Pay, a WordPress plugin that allow you to create donation forms and add the form to your site pages you want.
When should you accept online donations?
Deciding if your business or project should take donations depends on what kind of work you do – the nature of your work, your financial goals, and your audience. Here are some use cases for accepting online donations.
Digital creators, artists, writers, musicians, and others seek donations to fund their creative work. If you’re an artist, musician, or a content creator, you can use platforms like Buy Me a Coffee, Ko-fi, and Patreon or WordPress plugin like WP Full Pay to accept monetary gifts – donations from your audience. This provides a simple and direct way for fans to support their favorite creators and contribute to the content they enjoy.
Nonprofit organizations and charitable events can also benefit from online donation forms to expand their reach and get support for their causes.
Moreover, in urgent situations like disaster relief, online donations become a lifeline, enabling quick fundraising to aid affected communities. Similarly, educational institutions and individuals facing personal emergencies, especially medical ones, rely on online donations.
Educational bodies fund scholarships and infrastructure, while individuals seek broader community support through online platforms.
Types of online donations
Online donations can vary in how often payments are made, such as one-off or subscription-based. They can also differ in their purpose or underlying intent, such as crowdfunding or legacy giving.
One-time donations
Individuals can make a single donation of a specific amount to a cause or organization of their choice. One-time donations are one-off payment forms that are often suitable for immediate support.
A typical use case for accepting one-off online donations is a charitable organization conducting a specific fundraising campaign.
Recurring donations
Donors can set up automatic, recurring donations to provide ongoing support to a cause or organization at regular intervals, such as monthly or annually.
For example, an artist on Patreon or a blogger on WordPress can encourage their supporters to subscribe to recurring donations to provide ongoing support for their creative work. This consistent financial support motivates creators to focus more on producing content while helping them sustain their projects in the long term.
Crowdfunding
Online crowdfunding platforms allow individuals to raise funds for specific projects, events, or causes by collecting small donations from a large number of people. It allows individuals to create fundraising pages and share them with their networks to gain support.
For example, platforms like Kickstarter or GoFundMe help you create fundraising campaigns. Kickstarter is often used for creative, technological, or product-based projects, offering a reward-based system to backers. GoFundMe, on the other hand, is commonly used for a broader range of purposes, including personal causes, non-profit initiatives, and various startup projects.
With these platforms, you can easily set up a campaign page, share it with the network, and collect donations from a wide range of people to reach your funding goals.
There are also other types of donations such as in-kind donations, matching gifts, and legacy giving and bequests, which are suited for specific scenarios.
You might also like to read: The power of suggested donations.
How to use Stripe for Donations?
You can use Stripe, one of the top online payment platforms, for accepting donations and conducting fundraising. It supports transactions in over 100+ currencies securely through debit or credit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
The easiest way to use Stripe without code is by using its donation forms and Stripe Payment Links.
Stripe Payment Links allow you to create one-off or recurring online donation forms. With the donation payment form, you can accept contributions or financial gifts from individuals or organizations who wish to support.
Stripe is an optimal choice for donation forms for its secure Stripe Checkout, accessibility, affordability, and user-friendly interface.
To accept online donations through Stripe, it’s important to understand the requirements for accepting tips and donations.
For WordPress users, integrating Stripe is simple: add a Stripe donation plugin like WP Full Pay, configure Stripe on your WordPress site, and create your donation forms.
Stripe fees for nonprofits
Stripe processing fees for donations vary based on the country and payment method used (similar to PayPal’s fees). The discounted processing fees for nonprofits are not publicly available, but organizations that qualify get 0.7% off standard rates.
Applicable for nonprofits with verified 501(c)(3) status who plan to process at least 80% of donations through Stripe.
Read more about Stripe’s fee discount for nonprofit organizations.
Stripe nonprofit pricing per donation:
- Credit cards (except AMEX): 2.2% + US$0.30
- American Express cards: 3.5%
How do I accept donations in WordPress through Stripe?
If you’re looking to accept Stripe donations and payments on your WordPress website, you’ll need a plugin for that. WP Full Pay is a plugin that enables you to create donation forms through Stripe.
With WP Full Pay, you can set up either fixed or custom donations, as well as one-off and recurring payments, depending on the Stripe product you create. Your donors also have the option to select the frequency of their donations, be it a one-time, weekly, or monthly contribution.
Let’s go through step-by-step on how you can create a donation form on your WordPress site with WP Full Pay.
How to create Stripe donation form on WordPress?
In this guide, we will create donation form on WordPress using WP Full Pay.
We assume that you’ve already configured Stripe API Keys to WP Full Pay on WordPress.
Learn how to integrate Stripe with WordPress.
To create a donation form within your WordPress account with WP Full Pay, the follow these steps:
STEP 1: Create your donation form
On your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Full Pay → Forms.
Click the ‘Add form’ button.
Creating donation form on WordPress
On the new page, enter a name for your donation form and select ‘Donation‘ as the form type.
As you enter the display name, an identifier will automatically generate.
Then, click the ‘Create & Edit Form‘ button.
Creating donation form on WordPress
STEP 2: Set form properties and select post-donation page
Choose a page to display after a donation is made.
Hit the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Learn how to create a thank you page.
Adding thank you page for your donation form
STEP 3: Connect Stripe product and customize style
On the following page, add the Stripe product you’ve created as your donation form.
On this page you can customize elements such as the Stripe theme and button label.
You can also personalize the donation form with custom CSS.
You might also like to read how to customize forms with custom CSS.
Click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Customizing donation form on WordPress
STEP 4: Implement the form
After creating and saving the form, you will be redirected to the all forms page.
Here, click on ‘Copy Shortcode’.
Inserting Stripe donation form to your WordPress page
Next, navigate to the page where you want to embed the donation form.
To embed the Stripe form, simply paste the shortcode you copied.
Inserting Stripe donation form to your WordPress page
Everything is ready to go!
Now, you can start accepting online donations on your WordPress site using Stripe 🥳
Here’s how your donation form will appear by default, without any customization:
Simple Stripe donation appearance
Before announcing your donation form to fans and supporters, it’s important to first run a test transaction to ensure everything is working smoothly.
For testing your donation form, navigate to WP Full Pay -> Settings -> Stripe accounton your WordPress dashboard.
Here, toggle the account mode to ‘Test’.
This will allow you to conduct transactions without processing actual payments.
Learn how to conduct a Stripe test transaction.
For added security and peace of mind, consider including Stripe’s trust badges on your donation form. This can help reduce the abandonment rate and assure your donors that their payments are secure.
FAQs
- How do I accept Stripe payments on WordPress?
Step 1: Download and activate the ‘WP Full Pay’ plugin from the WordPress dashboard.
Step 2: Configure Stripe API Keys in WP Full Pay
Step 3: Create a donation form in your WordPress site
Step 4: Integrate Stripe payment form into your page and publish
- Is Stripe free on WordPress?
Yes, Stripe is free on WordPress and does not require a monthly fee.
Instead, Stripe charges fees per transaction and offers discounts for nonprofit organizations.
- Which plugins I can use on my WordPress to create donation form?
To accept Stripe payments on your WordPress sites, you can use WP Full Pay, SimplePay, and Payment Plugins
- What are the regulations to accept online donations?
To accept online donations, it is important to follow the compliance guidelines for each. For instance, when sending fundraising emails, you must adhere to CAN-SPAM and CASL rules. If you receive donations from people in the European Union, you need to get familiar with GDPR.