Charitable Documentation

Learn how to make the most of Charitable with clear, step-by-step instructions.

How to Enable Donor Referrals

Donor referrals help expand your fundraising reach by allowing supporters to share their giving with friends and family. This document will guide you on how to set up and manage donor referrals in Charitable.

Table of Contents

Enabling Donor Referrals

Charitable offers a quick and easy way to enable donor referrals. The feature is built into the Chartiable plugin so you don’t need to install any addons.

In your WordPress admin panel, go to the Charitable » Settings page. Open the Donors tab and then choose Donor Referrals from the submenu.

On this page, there is a toggle switch to enable Donor Referrals. Simply click this switch to turn on the Donor Referral feature.

Enable donor referrals

Once enabled, new settings will appear.

Configuring Donor Referral Settings

Charitable lets you customize the Donor Referral Message that contains instructions for your donors.

There is a default message added in for you. You can edit it as you need.

Donor referrals settings

This field will appear in the donation receipt along with their unique referral code.

Make sure you save your changes.

Troubleshooting Donor Referrals

In the same Settings page, you’ll see an option called Maintenance Actions. This dropdown enables you to remove codes for all donors and add codes for all donors.

Add remove donor referral codes

If you need to troubleshoot errors or reset the referral codes, this feature allows you to do that. You must enable Charitable Debug mode to see this menu.

Where Donors Will Find Their Referral Code

When a donor makes a contribution, a receipt will be automatically generated and displayed onscreen right after their payment is successful. The receipt contains details of their donation, such as donation number, date, total amount, and payment method. It will also contain the referral code.

Referral code in receipt

This receipt will also be sent to the email address they entered in the donation form.

They can share this referral code with friends and family to get more donations for your cause.

How New Donors Add The Referral Code

A referred donor can choose the campaign they want to donate to.

When they proceed to make a donation, in the donation form that appears, they will see a field where they can enter the referral code of their friends or family who referred them to this campaign.

Donor referral code in donation form

All they have to do is enter the referral code and complete their donation.

Viewing Donor Referrals Made

Go to the Charitable » Donors page in your WordPress dashboard. Open any donor profile here and scroll down to the section where you can see tabs such as Donations, Campaigns, Comments, Social, Logs, Notes, and Referrals.

Open the Referrals tab, you’ll see the donor’s referral code at the top of this page. You’ll also see any referred donations listed here.

Donor referrals in admins

You can edit the donation records or download the PDF receipt.

Now you know how to use the Donor Referrals feature. Explore Charitable’s Donor Management System here »

Still have questions? We’re here to help!

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Integration page builder

Divi Fans Rejoice! Native Divi 5 Campaign Progress Bar Module!

With our new native Divi 5 module, you can anchor your microsites with real-time fundraising stats directly on the visual canvas. Here’s how it works, and why it’s worth turning on today.

Create campaign updates that are VISUAL AND LIVE. You can also:

📊 Campaign Progress Bar: Drop a live progress bar into any Divi 5 layout and show goal progress in real time.

🎨 Deep styling controls: Easily customize the bar and track color, height, and radius to match your brand perfectly.

👁️ Visual Builder ready: Configure and preview everything directly on the Divi canvas as a first-class module.

🔁 Identical rendering: The same exact engine powers this module, meaning consistent design without legacy shims.

✅ Faster launches: Never leave the Divi 5 interface to configure shortcodes or guess how your goal labels will look.

Learn more here.

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Learn more here.

Addon New

🗒️ Custom Receipts… New Addon!

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Left side shows a donation receipt with donation number, date, total, and payment method for a  gift to Anywhere, titled 'One Family Gets Clean Water For A Week.'

Create receipts that are CUSTOM TO THE DONOR OR CAMPAIGN. You can also:

📅 Year-end appeal: Reinforce the goal and invite donors to share while momentum is high.

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🔁 Recurring growth: Invite one-time donors to become monthly supporters right on the receipt.

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Learn more here.

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Fundraising page header for Save Maple Grove Park with a donation widget and a small square photo of a sunlit tree thumbnail on the left.

🔦 Above-the-Fold Impact: Lead with a full-width hero image, your logo, and your goal with a donation widget locked right on top of the banner so your ask and momentum register instantly without scrolling.

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🎨 Automatic Theme Matching: The hero banner and donation widget automatically inherit your campaign theme’s button and accent colors, ensuring your entire presentation stays beautifully on-brand without touching a line of CSS.

Learn more here.

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Learn more here.