Best Donation Plugin for WordPress – Donorbox Review
Best Donation Plugin for WordPress – Donorbox Review
Just having a website is no longer enough. To be successful in today’s digital age, nonprofits need to have a functional, user-friendly, informative, and beautifully designed website.
Websites are somewhat of a “window into the soul” of nonprofits – they relay your mission, offer information about events, report on the effectiveness of your programs and services, solicit funds and so much more.
For nonprofits, who often have limited resources at their disposal, creating and maintaining a website that does all of that can seem like an impossible task.
However, having a great website is no longer difficult or expensive. With website builders – you can create beautiful and functional websites with little to no design or coding knowledge.
One of the most popular website builders is WordPress. WordPress.com was launched in 2005 and is arguably one of the most popular web builders and blog hosting services. WordPress is now powering around a quarter of the world’s websites (including names like BBC, Reuters, and Sony) with over 50 million users.
There are more than 50,000 free plugins available right now on the WordPress.org plugin directory. These plugins expand the functionality and add new features to your website.
Amongst all the decisions, choosing a donation plugin is one of the most important decisions your nonprofit will make. Although traditional fundraising (e.g. events and direct mail) are still important, online fundraising is the future of fundraising. It already the garners millions in charitable giving for the nonprofit industry every year.
It’s fast, convenient, appeals to new generations, raises your visibility, and surpasses geographical boundaries. With so many profits trying to get on board of the fastest growing fundraising trend and so many organizations offering their services, it can be hard to choose an online donation software.
Here’s our recommendation:
Donorbox – Free Donation Software
Donorbox is a powerful donation plugin that is very simple and fast to set up. Its simple and effective checkout is optimized for recurring donations. It only takes a couple of minutes for you to start accepting donation payments.
Over 7,000 organizations from 25 countries use the Donorbox fundraising software.
Getting Started – A Guide by Donorbox
To begin:
- Go to your WordPress dashboard. Next, find the “Plugins” tab on the left-hand sidebar and click “Add New”.
- In the WordPress plugin search bar, type “Donorbox” and press enter.
- Once you have found the Donorbox WordPress donation plugin, click “Install Now”.
- Once the plugin has been installed, click to activate it.
- Now, go to your Donorbox dashboard, find the campaign you wish to embed on your site using the WordPress donate plugin, and copy the link of the secure donation page.
- Create a campaign form with the easy-to-use form builder.
- In your Donorbox dashboard, find the campaign you wish to embed on your site using the WordPress donation plugin, and copy the link of the secure donation page.
- Head back to your WordPress dashboard and, in the left-hand sidebar, click on “Settings” and then “Donorbox”.
- Paste your campaign URL into the appropriate textbox and click “Save Changes”.
- Go back to your WordPress page text editor (not the visual editor) of the donation page that you want edit. Type in one of the following shortcodes to embed the donation form using the WordPress donate plugin:
[donate]
[donate url=”nonprofitcampaign”]
[donate url=”https://donorbox.org/nonprofitcampaign”]
[donate-with-info]
[donate-with-info url=”nonprofitcampaign”]
[donate-with-info url=”https://donorbox.org/nonprofitcampaign”]
- Publish your post and wait for your donations to start coming in!
Key Features
Donorbox offers an array of impressive features. Here are our favorite:
-
Free
This is one of Donorbox’s most convincing features. Donorbox is free if you get less than $1,000 in donations in a month. If you reach $1,000, they charge a small platform transaction fee of 0.89% for the month’s donations. This pricing is great for nonprofits that are just starting out, especially since most other donation platforms charge between 2-5% or more. This feature is very appreciated by their users.
-
Simple and Fully Customizable Donation Forms
Donorbox donation forms are simple, minimalist, and visually appealing. Check out some of their donation pages:
– https://donorbox.org/paintcreeksanctuary
– https://habitatfairfield.org/donate/
– https://www.patersonhabitat.org/donate
Since their donation forms are fully customizable, they can match the look and feel of your nonprofit website. Donorbox lets you brand your donation page with your own color scheme, styling and logo.
Minimalist, beautiful, and simple donation forms increase conversion rates (the percentage of website visitors who end up donating). This is not only because donors can focus on the process of giving itself, but because more and more individuals report being put off by slow, cluttered, and laggy pages.
-
Secure
When choosing a donation software, security is evidently an important feature.
Donorbox uses Stripe’s secure token mechanism. Card numbers are tokenized (the number is changed to an undecipherable string, IE: `tok_fafds23423′) before Donorbox charges the card. Saved cards and bank accounts for recurring donations are also tokenized. Therefore, Donorbox doesn’t have any record of the donor’s card number in their database and logs.
Donorbox is fully PCI compliant and secured by SSL/TLS. They utilize Stripe Elements technology and Stripe is certified as a PCI Level 1 Service Provider. This is the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry.
Donorbox also does not share client or donation information with any third party.
-
Multiple Payment Gateways
Donorbox caters to the next generation of donors. Their donation forms are localized in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese.
Furthermore, Donorbox accepts donations in multiple currencies (USD, EUR, CAD, GBP, AUD, plus more) and has also recently introduced ApplePay and Google Pay as payment options. This helps make payments simple and fast. ACH payments are also accepted. The checkout process is quick and easy.
Anything that makes the donation process simpler, more customized and easier for the donor is an invaluable feature.
-
Easy Integrations
Donorbox easily integrates and allows you to get the most out of your online donation system. For example, by integrating Donorbox with the following three systems, you get you donor information into the most powerful CRM out there (Salesforce NPSP 3), you let your donors quickly access their corporate matching gift programs and easily start the matching process, and you make connecting with your donors and sending out email marketing campaigns easier than ever (with Mailchimp).
- MailChimp Integration: $8 / month
- Employer Gift Matching: $40 / month
- Salesforce NPSP 3 Integration: $25 / month
-
Suggested Donation Amounts
Offering different giving levels allows donors to choose how much they are willing to give. When giving levels are integrated properly they can increase average donation amounts and help you meet or exceed your fundraising goals. This is because humans are motivated by “social norms” when making choices.
Donorbox lets you set suggested amounts as well as tie in descriptions to suggested donation amounts (e.g. $30 dollars will pay for one month of healthcare for one endangered animal). This lets donors visualize the impact of their donations, which increases the chances of them donating.
-
Recurring Donations
Donorbox is optimized for recurring donations with its simple and effective checkout.
Donorbox also offers the fundraising thermometer feature, which in combination with the recurring donations increases the number of donations.
-
Automated Actions
Donorbox allows you to automate a lot of actions, saving your nonprofit time and effort. For example, their payment gateway Stripe will transfer your donations to your account on your pre-selected schedule. Furthermore, every donation triggers an automatic personalised receipt email that you only need to set up once.
In addition to these, Donorbox offers many other features:
– Donorbox support team is always prompt to respond and provide helpful answers to your questions and queries;
– You can accept donations on your Facebook Page;
– Optimized for desktop, mobile phones, and tablets;
– Popup donation form available;
– Donation tracking code & PDF invoices available;
– Donors have full control over their monthly recurring donations;
– You can export your donor data as csv and auto-export your donor data to MailChimp and Salesforce NPSP;
– PDF receipts, filtering recurring donations, and converting different currencies available.
Pricing
Donorbox is free if you get less than $1k in donations in a month. There are no set up costs. If you reach $1k in a month, Donorbox charges a small platform fee of 0.89% for the month’s donations.
Additionally, Stripe and PayPal merchant accounts charge 2.9% + $0.30 for credit card processing. These rates can be reduced for registered nonprofits by simply letting them know.
Final Thoughts
Running a nonprofit, and taking care of everything that that entails, can be disconcerting. Ensuring your nonprofit website is top of the notch and your supporters have a smooth donation experience, while at the same time balancing all other areas of nonprofit management, is not easy. This is why an excellent donation software that doesn’t come at a huge cost is essential.
Donorbox continuously proves to be the best donation plugin for your WordPress site.
It is incredibly easy to use and set up. It is free, which makes it accessible to nonprofits of all kinds. Donorbox listens to customer feedback and keenly implements it, constantly coming out with new features and integration (without any additional cost).
With its simple and effective donation forms optimized for recurring donations, its multiple payment gateways, and its trustworthy safety system, Donorbox makes fundraising easier than ever.