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Charitable is Joining the Awesome Motive Family

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Today, I’m excited to share that Charitable is joining the Awesome Motive team led by Syed Balkhi.

Wes and I launched Charitable in 2015 because we were tired of seeing non-profits use hosted fundraising platforms that charge hefty fees and strip them of the ability to brand & control their donation pages. 

Other WordPress donation plugins existed, but they missed important functionality or were poorly supported, leaving nonprofits to choose between expensive platforms or plugins lacking the features they really needed.

Over the last 7 years, Charitable has grown a lot. It has become a top-rated WordPress donation and fundraising plugin that is trusted by over 10,000 non-profits all over the world.

After being a small team splitting our time on the product as well as our agency business for the last 7 years, we are ready to pass the reins to someone who shares the same passion and has the resources to make Charitable even better than it is today.

With Awesome Motive’s vast resources and deep understanding of the WordPress industry, I know they’ll be able to make Charitable even more powerful than it is today.

Since this is a BIG NEWS, you probably have a lot of questions like: who is Awesome Motive, what does this acquisition mean for existing customers, what will happen to the Charitable team, what’s coming next, etc.

Who’s Awesome Motive?

Awesome Motive is a company started by Syed Balkhi with a mission to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys.

What we like about Awesome Motive is that it’s a bootstrapped company that’s truly purpose driven. 

They’re behind some of the most popular plugins and resources in the WordPress ecosystem:

  • WPBeginner – the largest free WordPress resource site for beginners.
  • OptinMonster – popular conversion optimization software that helps you convert abandoning visitors into subscribers and customers.
  • WPForms – the most beginner friendly WordPress form builder.
  • MonsterInsights – the most popular WordPress Analytics plugin that helps you grow your business with confidence.
  • AIOSEO – the original WordPress SEO plugin to help you get more traffic.
  • WP Mail SMTP – the #1 plugin that helps improve your WordPress email deliverability.
  • SeedProd – the best drag & drop landing page builder for WordPress.
  • RafflePress – powerful WordPress giveaway and contest plugin to grow your website traffic.
  • Smash Balloon – most popular social media feeds plugin for WordPress.
  • PushEngage – leading web push notification software for small businesses.
  • SearchWP – the most advanced WordPress search plugin.
  • AffiliateWP – leading WordPress affiliate management plugin.
  • Easy Digital Downloads – leading eCommerce plugin for selling digital products.
  • WP Simple Pay – simple WordPress payment plugin that lets you accept online payments without creating a shopping cart.
  • … and many more.

Collectively over 20 million websites use Awesome Motive plugins. 

We have known Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner and Awesome Motive for multiple years and have a lot of respect for the work they do.

We also share a lot of the same values: commitment to excellence, customer service, and putting people first.

Aside from the shared commitment, their team has a lot of experience with running large plugins as well as working with payment & marketing platforms, both of which are critical for Charitable.

I’m confident that Charitable will have a brighter future under Syed’s vision and leadership.

What does this acquisition mean for existing users?

Aside from the new ownership change, it’s business as usual. You can continue to use the plugin that you love without any interruptions.

Charitable was run by Wes and I, and we will be helping with the transition process to ensure everything goes smoothly. The product will now be led by Awesome Motive.

David Bisset, one of the most well-known and highly respected WordPress developers has joined Awesome Motive, and he will be leading the product development as they grow the Charitable team.

See the Awesome Motive Careers page for open positions.

It’s also important to note that for existing users with an active paid subscription of Charitable, the invoices will now come from WP Charitable LLC instead of Studio164a. 

What’s Coming Next?

I’m super excited to see what new features Syed and team will build in WP Charitable first. 

We have shared our extensive feature wishlist, and we know that with Awesome Motive’s resources and experience that wishlist will become a reality much faster.

As we pass the baton, Wes and I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported us on this journey. We have been humbled to play a small part in the fundraising journey for so many amazing organizations. 

I just want to say that I’m proud of the work we have done with Charitable, and I am very confident in Syed’s vision to take Charitable to the next level.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has supported us on this amazing journey. If you would like to stay in touch, you can connect with me via LinkedIn.

Sincerely,

Eric Daams
Founder of WP Charitable

author avatar
Eric Daams

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ambassadors New

🔑 Introducing Passwordless Fundraisers: Sign Up With Just an Email!

Supporters arrive wanting to help, and then the form asks them to invent a password for a website they may only visit twice. A lot of them stop right there. Passwordless Fundraiser Accounts, new in Charitable Ambassadors 3.5.0, let a supporter start a peer to peer fundraiser with nothing but an email address. Why this is important:

  • 🔑 No password step to lose them at: Switch it on in Charitable » Ambassadors » Templates » Submit Form and the create-fundraiser form asks only for a name, an email address and a page title.
  • 👤 Still a real WordPress account: One click in one email confirms the address, signs them in and creates the account, so they can come back later to edit their story, change their photo and see who has donated.
  • 🎚️ Your call on every campaign: Each peer to peer campaign can follow the site default or override it, which matters when a campaign pays fundraisers through Stripe Connect and those people do need a password.
  • 📋 See who has not clicked yet: The Charitable » Ambassadors » Directory » Awaiting Sign-In tab lists everyone still waiting, with the campaign they joined and a Resend button, so a typo or a spam folder is something you can spot and fix.
  • 🛡️ Links a scanner cannot use up: Opening the link only shows a page, and your fundraiser is signed in when they press the button on it, so corporate email scanners never burn the link. Each one works once, expires on its own and is stored only as a hash.

Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
ambassadors New

🏃 Introducing Activity: Show Progress on More Than Money!

Most peer-to-peer fundraisers are about more than the money. A read-a-thon is about minutes read, a walkathon is about miles walked, and a food drive is about meals packed. Activity for Charitable Ambassadors lets your fundraisers show that effort right beside the dollars they raise. Why this is important:

  • 🎯 Progress on what you actually count: A progress bar shows each thing you count against its own target, sitting right beside the money raised.
  • 🏅 Milestones for the yes or no things: A milestone badge marks the efforts that are simply done or not done, with no number to chase.
  • ✍️ Fundraisers log their own numbers: Your supporters enter their totals from their own pages, so the effort stops living in a spreadsheet, a comment, or nowhere at all.
  • 🤖 Some numbers count themselves: An AUTOMATIC tag appears wherever the site worked the figure out from completed donations, so you can see at a glance what nobody typed in.
  • 🧩 Set it up once, use it anywhere: You decide what gets counted one time, then choose which campaigns count it. Available now in Charitable Ambassadors 3.4.7, with no new plugin and no developer.

Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
ambassadors New

🖨️ Introducing Fliers and Posters: Raise Money Away From the Screen!

A lot of peer-to-peer fundraising happens away from a screen: at the finish line of a 5K, on a school noticeboard, in an office kitchen. Charitable Ambassadors 3.4.7 adds 2 printables, a fundraiser flier carrying each fundraiser’s own story and QR code, and a recruitment poster that signs new fundraisers up. Both open as a normal web page and print straight from the browser. Why this is important:

  • 🏁 A flier for every fundraiser: Each one carries that fundraiser’s own photo, story and goal, with a QR code that opens their page rather than your main campaign.
  • 📌 A poster that recruits: It shows “Now Recruiting” above your campaign name with a large QR code that opens your sign-up form, so someone can start fundraising without waiting on a link from you.
  • 🪄 No design tool needed: Both printables render as a normal web page and print from the browser, with no PDF plugin and no designer.
  • 📄 2 flier layouts: Hand out carries the full story for giving to friends and family, and Post up carries a short hook with 5 tear-off tabs for a noticeboard.
  • 🛡️ Off until you switch it on: Fliers stay off after the update until you enable them under Charitable » Ambassadors » Other » Fliers, and only the owner or an administrator can open one.

Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
Improvement Payments

💸 Introducing Tiered Rates for Fee Relief: Match the Ask to the Gift!

Fee Relief asks your donors one short question at checkout: would you like to cover the processing fee on this gift? Until now that question used a single rate for every donation on a gateway, so a $10 gift and a $500 gift were asked for the same percentage. Fee Relief 1.3.0 lets you set as many donation bands as you like, each carrying its own rate. Why this is important:

  • 🪙 Gentler on small gifts: A fixed transaction cost is a far bigger share of a $10 donation than a $500 one, so bands let you ask for less at the bottom.
  • 🎚️ As many bands as you need: Each band carries its own percentage and its own fixed amount, and the top band runs on with no upper limit.
  • 🛑 An optional ceiling: A Maximum fee field stops any donor being asked for more than a number you choose, however large the gift.
  • 🔌 Set per payment gateway: Stripe can run on four bands while Windcave and Payfast stay on a single rate, because bands belong to a gateway and not to your whole site.
  • 🛡️ Nothing changes until you say so: Your current rates stay exactly as they are until you switch Use Tiered Rates on under Charitable » Settings » Advanced » Fee Relief.

Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams
Donations Improvement

📊 Your Pro Dashboard Can Now Compare, Export, and Score!

Most fundraising dashboards only tell you how much you have raised. Charitable Pro 1.8.19 rebuilds the dashboard and the Reports Overview around the harder questions: whether anything is broken, whether this period beat the last one, and which single change would make the most difference today. Why this is important:

  • 📈 Every figure has a trend: Pick a period and the tiles and the chart move together, with each total shown against the previous period.
  • 🗓️ Charts that stay readable: Short ranges group donations day by day, while longer ranges group by week or month, so a full year reads as a curve instead of a flat line.
  • 🔀 Compare any 2 periods: Not just consecutive ones, so you can ask how this December did against last December. That matters because fundraising is seasonal.
  • 📤 Export the whole summary: Send the full overview out as CSV or PDF, ready for a board pack or a funder report.
  • 🎯 Score your setup for free: Have your fundraising setup scored, so the one change worth making next is the one you can see.

Check out our announcement here.

author avatar
Eric Daams