Charitable Documentation

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How to Connect your Square Test Account in Charitable

Testing your Square payment gateway before going live ensures donations work smoothly when you launch. This guide walks you through connecting your Square sandbox (test) account to Charitable.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • A Square account
  • Charitable plugin installed and activated
  • WordPress admin access

In this Guide

Quick answers

I clicked “Connect to Square (Sandbox)” and got a blank white screen. What happened?

This is a Square requirement, not a Charitable bug. Before clicking Connect, open your Square Sandbox Dashboard in another tab of the same browser and leave it open. Then return to Charitable and click Connect again. The full steps are in Step 1 below.

Do my WordPress email and Square email need to match?

No. Your WordPress admin email, your live Square account email, and your Square Sandbox test account email can all be different. That is normal and expected. Charitable connects to Square through a secure authorization flow (OAuth), not by matching email addresses.

What is the Square sandbox?

The Square sandbox is a testing environment that mirrors live Square without processing real money. You can test the full donation flow, error handling, and confirmation emails using Square’s test card numbers. Sandbox transactions never hit a real bank account.

Step 1: Create your Square sandbox account

Sign up for Square if you haven’t already, then log in to your Square Developer Console.

Note: The Developer Console is for managing applications and API access. The Square Dashboard is for general business operations. They are two different places.

You should see a page like this:

Square application tab

From the left-hand navigation, open the Sandbox test accounts page. You’ll see a default test account along with a Square Dashboard link.

Sandbox test tab with Square dashboard link

Click the Square Dashboard link. A new tab opens with your Sandbox Square dashboard. You’ll see a Sandbox indicator at the top, confirming this isn’t your live dashboard.

Square sandbox dashboard

Important: Keep this Sandbox dashboard tab open and active throughout the entire connection process. This is a requirement from Square (not Charitable) and is necessary for the connection to work properly. If you close the tab, you’ll see a blank white screen when you try to connect.

Step 2: Connect Charitable to Square

With the Sandbox dashboard tab still open, switch to your WordPress admin. From the menu on the left, go to Charitable > Settings > Payment Gateways.

Click Enable Gateway next to Square if you haven’t already done so:

Charitable Square enable gateway

On the same page, turn on Test Mode – this is what tells Charitable to connect to the sandbox instead of live Square. Click Save Changes.

Turn on test mode

Now click Gateway Settings to open Square’s configuration. Find the Connection Status section and click Connect to Square Account (Sandbox).

Square connection status sandbox

Square will ask you to authorize the connection. Click Allow, then return to Charitable and click Save Changes to finalize.

Reminder: The Square sandbox dashboard tab must remain open in another browser tab while you connect. Keep it open for any future Square testing too – not just the initial setup.

Step 3: Test your connection

Make a test donation on one of your campaigns using one of Square’s test card numbers (for example, 4111 1111 1111 1111 for a successful Visa charge). Then verify:

  • The donation appears in Charitable > Donations
  • The transaction shows up in your Square Sandbox Dashboard under Transactions
  • The donor receipt email is sent and looks right

If all three match, your connection is working.

Step 4: Switch to live payments

Once you’re confident the sandbox connection works, switch Charitable to live mode:

  1. Go to Charitable > Settings > Payment Gateways and click Gateway Settings next to Square.
  2. Turn off Test Mode and click Save Changes.
  3. In the Connection Status section, click Connect to Square Account (no sandbox label this time) and authorize your live Square account.

Your live donations will now be processed by your real Square account.

More questions

How do I turn off Test Mode in Charitable?

Go to Charitable > Settings > Payment Gateways, click Gateway Settings next to Square, turn off Test Mode, and click Save Changes.

I want to test with a different country’s currency. How?

In the Square Developer Dashboard, go to Sandbox test accounts and click New sandbox test account. Choose the country whose currency you want to test, then connect Charitable to that account using the same steps above.

Where can I find more tips and nonprofit advice from Charitable?

We regularly share practical guides, proven strategies, and insider tips to help you raise more funds and build stronger donor relationships:

Need help with other Charitable features? Check out our other documentation guides or contact support.

Still have questions? We’re here to help!

Submit a Support Ticket
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ambassadors New

👤 Creator Profiles: Put a Face to Every Peer-to-Peer Campaign

Ambassadors 3.3.0 now provies Creator Profiles — giving your supporters a permanent, shareable public home that turns one-time fundraisers into ongoing relationships.

👤 Public Creator Pages: Give every fundraiser an instant, clean landing page at /creator/their-name/ to showcase their custom avatar, bio, and a browsable grid of their campaigns.

📊 Proof of Impact: Boost donor trust by displaying site-wide milestones on the profile—like total funds raised and total donor counts.

💳 Interactive Hover Cards: When donors hover over a creator’s name on a campaign page, a compact card expands with their bio and social handles right at the moment of decision.

📍 Responsible Location Sharing: Allow creators to safely show local supporters where they are based using only city, state, and country details.

🛠️ Self-Serve Customization: Fundraisers can update their own profiles and link up to six social networks directly from the My Campaigns hub, saving you admin time.

Ready to empower your advocates? Update to Ambassadors 3.3.0 and turn on “Enable Public Creator Page” today!

Improvement Payments

📱 Turn Mobile Scrollers Into Donors: Meet Charitable’s Mollie Upgrade

Losing mobile supporters because they hate typing out long card numbers on their phones? Charitable’s updated Mollie integration features:

⚡ One-Tap Wallet Checkout: Enable donors to complete their gifts instantly using Apple Pay or Google Pay with a simple face scan, fingerprint, or tap.

💰 No Extra PCI Burden: Skip complex domain verification and security compliance since all wallet transactions run safely through Mollie’s hosted checkout.

🛠️ Custom Cancel Routing: Keep the experience predictable by automatically sending donors who back out to your cancellation page, or use developer filters to route them to a custom page.

Visit this page to learn more.

ambassadors improved New

Moderation and Directory Screens In Ambassadors 3.0

Ambassadors 3.0 has new features: moderation and directory screens… now easily see those who are earning donations on your peer to peer network – including campaign creators that might need to be verified – all in one place. Generate reports, email ambassadors and campaign creators directly and more.

🚀 See when campaign creators and ambassadors have updated their campaigns, what donors/donation they have brought in and more.

🎉 Manually add ambassadors and campaign creators, and approve them in one-click!

Visit this page to learn more.

New Payments

⚡ Unlock India-Based Donations: Meet Charitable’s Native Razorpay Integration

Trying to collect donations in India? Charitable’s native Razorpay integration features:

⚡ Instant UPI Integration: Accept fast, local donations directly inside your form via apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, and BHIM without sending donors away from your site.

📲 Auto-Generated Campaign QRs: Instantly render scannable QR codes encoding a UPI deep link directly on your public campaign pages and sidebars for an effortless “scan-to-give” experience.

💰 Dual Local & Global Reach: Headline your campaigns in INR while seamlessly accepting major international currencies like USD, EUR, GBP, and CAD to maximize global support.

🔁 Seamless Recurring Giving: Fully integrates with the Charitable Recurring addon to manage automatic monthly subscriptions directly through Razorpay without extra code.

↩️ Automatic Two-Way Sync: Keep your books perfectly clean with two-way refund syncing—issue a refund inside WordPress or your Razorpay dashboard and both sides update automatically.

🔒 Webhook-Verified Security: Automatically protect your donation records using HMAC-signed webhook verification to ensure every status update represents real money cleared on the rails.

Visit this page to learn more.

Integration New

🎉 New Built-in PushEngage Integration

Struggling with falling email open rates and rising ad costs just to keep your supporters engaged? Charitable’s built-in PushEngage integration features:

🔔 Zero-Fee Direct Messaging: Deliver crisp, instant pop-up notifications straight to your donors’ desktops and mobile devices.

⏱️ Four Smart Automated Triggers: Automatically send updates for immediate donation thank yous, full-list campaign launches, urgent “ending soon” alerts, and goal milestone celebrations.

📈 Group Momentum Broadcasts: Turn private milestones into public wins by automatically broadcasting alerts to your entire subscriber list the moment a campaign hits 50%, 75%, or 100% of its goal.

📊 Automatic Analytics Tracking: Monitor exactly where your incoming notification traffic is coming from with built-in attribution that requires zero complex configuration.

Visit this page to learn more.

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