Charitable Documentation

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

Charitable Anonymous Donations

With Anonymous Donations, people can support your cause without having their name publicly displayed. Donors can choose to remain anonymous when they donate.

It’s easy to set up and takes under a minute!

How to Enable Anonymous Donations

Installing Charitable Anonymous Donations is the same as installing any other Charitable extension.

If you’re not sure how to do that, we recommend first reading our guide to installing Charitable extensions.

In your WordPress admin, head to Charitable » Addons. Enable the Anonymous Donations add on here. Activate it and that’s it.

Anonymous donations addon

Now, on your donation form, donors will see a checkbox to keep their donation anonymous.

How It Appears on The Front End

With Anonymous Donations, people can support your cause you without having their name publicly displayed. Donors can choose to remain anonymous when they donate.

Screenshot showing anonymous donations checkbox in donation form

Anonymous Donations in the Donors Block

If you’re using the Donor’s block from Charitable in any page or post, you can show anonymous donors as “Anonymous” or hide them completely.

Hide anonymous donors

Note: If you have chosen to group donations by the same person, the donor will still be shown if they have made at least one public donation.

Their name and photo will be hidden when displayed in the Donors widget. Here’s a sample of what that can look like on the front end:

An anonymous donor

Anonymous Donations in Comments

If the “Keep my donation anonymous” box is checked, the donor’s details will not be shared to the general public but they can still leave a comment.

Anonymous option with comment

On the front end, their name and photo will automatically not be displayed in the comments section. But their message will still appear like so:

Anonymous comment

Viewing Anonymous Donor Details

While your donor remains anonymous to others, you still gather the data you need for tax purposes and your internal records.

Go to Charitable » Donations. Open up the donation record and you’ll see the donor’s name, email, and donation details. There’s a note for all anonymous donors that reads “Donation made anonymously.”

Anonymous donation in donors

That’s it. Anonymous Donations is that simple.

See more about Anonymous Donations »

For Developers

If you’d like to change the text that appears on the donation form, use.

add_filter( ‘gettext’, function ( $translated, $text, $domain ) {
    if ( ‘charitable-anonymous’ === $domain
        && ‘I would like to make my donation anonymously.’ === $text ) {
        return ‘Make my gift anonymous’;   // <– your wording
    }
    return $translated;
}, 20, 3 );

Helpful Links

🤝 Get help when you need it

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📑 Find the guide you need

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🔗 Let your AI Assistant do the fundraising work for you.

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💸 Get Free Fundraising Resources
Head to the Charitable Fundraising Hub →

🤔 Got questions about Charitable?
Charitable FAQs →

Need help understanding non-profit terms and jargon?
See our Non-Profit Glossary →

Still have questions? We’re here to help!

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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.

Feature New

🎟️ Introducing Charitable Events: Sell Tickets Inside Your Campaigns!

Most nonprofits sell event tickets in one tool and collect donations in another, which leaves two sets of reports and a manual match at the end of the year. Charitable Events brings both together, selling tickets through the same donation forms and payment gateways you already run in Charitable. Why this is important:

  • 🎟️ Every ticket is a donation: Ticket sales run through the gateway you already use and count toward the campaign goal, with everything managed under Charitable » Events.
  • 📱 QR check-in from any phone: Each attendee gets their own QR code on the receipt, and volunteers scan at the door through a check-in link that needs no WordPress account.
  • 🧾 Receipts ready for tax time: Give each ticket type a fair market value, and Charitable puts the correct tax-deductible amount on every donor receipt.
  • 📋 Attendee details at checkout: Ask every guest for a meal choice, shirt size, or access needs, with a separate attendee record created for each ticket.
  • 🗓️ Blocks and calendars included: Three editor blocks plus Sugar Calendar and The Events Calendar support put your events where supporters already look.

Check out our announcement here.

ai New

🚀 Unleash AI Power in Charitable!

Your AI assistant can now build, edit, and manage your Charitable fundraising campaigns directly — just by asking. With Charitable Pro adding write support for the WordPress Abilities API, tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor can handle full administrative actions safely through MCP. Why this is important:

  • 🤖 Campaign creation in plain language: Prompt your assistant with a goal like “Set up a fundraiser for the shelter with a $5,000 goal”, and it builds a real draft campaign complete with suggested donation tiers.
  • 🎨 Instant donation form tweaks: Add custom fields, change button colors, or reorder elements without diving into form settings.
  • 📝 Offline gift logging: Tell your assistant about cash or check gifts, and it will match donor emails and record transactions into your history.
  • 🛡️ Safety and control by default: Write access stays strictly off until turned on in Charitable » Tools » AI MCP, keeping read-only reporting safe by default.
  • 📜 Full audit logging: Every change made by an AI assistant is tracked under Charitable » Tools » Logs, so you always know who (or what) updated your site.

Check out our announcement here.

Improvement Payments

💰 Accept Recurring Donations with Windcave and Charitable

A donor sets their gift up once on Windcave’s secure payment page, and Charitable bills every renewal after that on schedule. Why this is important:

🏦 Organizations banked in New Zealand or Australia: monthly giving on the gateway your bank already set you up with, with no second processor to onboard.
⛪ Churches taking regular tithes and offerings: congregants set their own schedule once, which is the simplest way to launch recurring church giving without a separate platform.
🌏 Groups with donors in several currencies: Windcave handles more than 20, so a supporter can give in the currency they actually hold.
📅 Operating funds rather than one-time campaigns: switch on Recurring Only mode and the one-off option disappears, so every gift to that campaign is a subscription.
🧾 Teams with no developer on staff: 3 sets of credentials pasted into a settings page, and no code anywhere.

Check out our announcement here.

automation update

⚡ Visual Automation Builder: Drag and Drop With No Code!

Charitable Automation Connect 2.3.0 introduces the Visual Automation Builder, a full-screen canvas that lays each automation out as a flow of connected cards: a trigger, optional conditions, and a list of actions that run in order.

🧩 Many actions, one trigger: Tag a donor, send an email, add a note, and fire a webhook from a single event, dragged into any order.

✉️ Act inside Charitable: New Send Email, Tag Donor, and Add Donor Note actions run with no external service required.

🔤 Merge tags: Personalize emails and notes with live fields like {first_name}, {total}, and {campaign_name}.

🔁 Apply to existing donors: Run Tag Donor and Add Donor Note against the donors you already have.

🖥️ Canvas or Simple: Switch views anytime, and automations built before 2.3.0 keep working unchanged.

Read more here.