Charitable Documentation

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

How to Setup and Use DonorTrust Real-Time Notifications

DonorTrust shows recent donations made on your website in real-time. This is a great way to build trust and encourage more people to give to your cause!

Why it Works: People are more likely to trust what others are doing. When visitors see that others are donating, they’re more likely to trust your organization and donate too.

With DonorTrust, real-time notifications in neat non-intrusive popups will appear on your site. Here’s an example:

DonorTrust popup

Setting up DonorTrust notifications is simple and easy to do. Let’s get started!

Prerequisites

  • A WordPress site with Charitable Pro (1.8.7.3+) installed. Not sure how to do that? See our guide on How to Install Charitable »
  • At least one campaign with paid donations.

DonorTrust is an addon that comes with the Charitable Pro plugin and is available on the Plus, Pro, or Elite plan.

You can install and activate it like any other Charitable addon. See our documentation on how to download and activate addons easily.

If you are a Charitable Lite user, consider Upgrading to Pro to access DonorTrust and many more features. You may also see the difference between Charitable Lite vs Pro.

Step 1: Enabling DonorTrust

We’ve made it as easy as 1 click to enable this feature. Go to the Charitable » Settings » Advanced tab within your WordPress admin.

Open the DonorTrust tab, and you’ll see a toggle switch to enable this feature.

Enable DonorTrust

Once enabled, new settings will appear.

Step 2: Selecting Campaigns to Display

In the Campaigns section, you can choose which campaigns you want to show notifications for. Simply select individual campaigns and use the arrows to move them to the right column.

When a campaign is added to the right column, Charitable will start creating and displaying popups for donations made to that specific campaign.

Add campaigns to DonorTrust

You can choose to quickly add all active campaigns or all completed campaigns.

Step 3: Making Clickable Popups

By default, the popups will link to the campaign page. This option is already enabled. When someone clicks on a notification, the campaign will open in a new tab.

Clickable link in DonorTrust

If you’d prefer to only show the recent donation information without links, turn this switch off.

Enable link to campaign in DonorTrust

Step 4: Choosing a Minimum Donation Amount

You might not want to show every donation. You can set a minimum donation amount, like $25 or $100. Decide what amount you think will have a positive impact on potential donors.

Minimum donation amount in DonorTrust

The default amount is set to $0.00, which means all donations will be displayed.

Step 5: Setting up Display Rules

Charitable lets you control where and to whom your popups appear. First, choose who can see the notifications using the Show To options:

  • All visitors
  • Only logged out users
  • Only logged in users
Show to in donortrust

Below that, you can choose where the popups appear using the Show On options:

Show on options in donortrust

DonorTrust popups can appear on any frontend page of your site. You can also select specific pages:

  • The homepage
  • Campaign pages
  • Donation form pages
  • Individual WordPress pages

You can choose as many of these options as you want.

Step 6: Customizing the Popup Details

Next, you can control what details appear in the popup. These include:

  • First name
  • Last name
  • Donation amount
  • State/region
  • Country
What data to display in DonorTrust

Important: Remember to consider privacy and data laws when choosing this information.

You can also choose how you want the popups to be ordered. You can arrange them by donation date, campaign creation date, or randomly.

Order and amount in donortrust settings
Order and amount in donortrust settings

You can also choose the maximum number of donation records to display. We recommend setting it at around 10, up to a maximum of 20.

Step 7: Increasing the Trust Factor

Below this, you can choose to show how long ago the donation was made, adding a “Time ago” detail. This helps build trust.

Verified badge in DonorTrust

You can also display a validation checkmark to further add trust and credibility. This will add text like “Verified by [Your Organization Name]” to the popup, for example, “Verified by World Charity Inc.”

DonorTrust verified badge

By default, Charitable will show the initials of the donor. You can choose to add an avatar instead.

That’s it! Save Changes, and your popups will now appear on your site according to the settings you’ve chosen.

DonorTrust is a simple yet powerful tool to help increase donations by building trust and showing social proof. You can leverage the power of real-time notifications and encourage more visitors to support your cause.

Next up are frequently asked questions to help clear up any doubts you may have.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Charitable?

Charitable is a powerful and flexible WordPress donation plugin designed to help nonprofits and charities easily accept online donations. It simplifies the process of creating donation forms, managing campaigns, and tracking contributions.

What is DonorTrust? Do I need to use it with DonorTrust?

DonorTrust is a feature within Charitable Pro. It displays real-time notifications of recent donations made on your site. This is a form of social proof that can encourage more visitors to contribute to your cause.

How many donation records should I display?

Most websites display 5-10 donations. This provides enough social proof without creating information overload or making the page feel cluttered.

Can I customize the appearance of the popups?

Yes, you can control the details displayed in the popups (name, donation amount, country, etc.). You can also change the order the records are displayed and control where popups appear on your site.

Is there a privacy concern with displaying donor information?

Yes, that’s an important consideration. Be mindful of privacy laws and only display information that donors are comfortable with. Consider showing only donation amounts and a general location (e.g., State/Region) and avoid displaying full names or other personally identifiable information if you are unsure of local rules.

Can I test DonorTrust before making it live?

Yes. Once you’ve saved settings, you can manually create a test donation to verify that the popups appear and are displaying correctly. Make sure to view your site as a visitor before fully launching it.

What if I don’t want the popups to be clickable?

You can easily turn off the clickable link within the settings; the popups will simply display the donation information without redirecting to the campaign page.

Does DonorTrust work with all WordPress themes?

DonorTrust should work with most well-coded WordPress themes.

You may also want to connect your Charitable campaigns to Google Analytics to get indepth insights on your campaigns.

To make the most of Charitable and its features, check out our Documentation Hub »

Still have questions? We’re here to help!

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Integration New

WordPress Command Palette Integration

Take your fundraising workflow to the next level. Speed up your site management and stay in your creative flow with our new WordPress Command Palette integration.

Supercharge Your Workflow
Navigate your fundraising dashboard faster than ever.

The Ultimate Keyboard Shortcut Hit Cmd + K (or Ctrl + K) to launch the Command Palette and manage your campaigns instantly.

⚡ Instant Navigation: Jump directly to your Campaigns, Donations, or Settings from anywhere in the editor.

➕ Quick Create: Start a new fundraising campaign or add a manual donation with a single command.

Efficiency Redefined
The tools you need, exactly when you need them.

⚙️ Contextual Actions: See relevant Charitable commands based on whether you’re editing a page or viewing your reports.

🚀 Seamless Integration: Built directly into the WordPress core experience for a lightweight, native feel.

Improvement New Security

📣 New Security Features

We’ve introduced a suite of new security tools to give you total control over who accesses your forms, plus a new way to tidy up your database.

Advanced Security Suite

Layered protection: Cloudflare, ReCAPTCHA, IP Controls, and Rate Limiting.

We have overhauled our security settings to stop bots without blocking real donors.

  • 🤖 Flexible Protection: Choose between Google reCAPTCHA v3 or the privacy-first Cloudflare Turnstile to block bots invisible.

  • 🚦 Rate limiting: Stop spam floods by limiting how many submissions an IP address can make in a set timeframe.

  • 🛑 Total control: Use the new IP Blacklist to block bad actors instantly, or the IP Whitelist to let your team bypass checks during testing.

The Clean Donation Tool

Go from “Testing” to “Live” in seconds.

Finished setting up your site and need to get rid of all those test transactions?

  • 🧹 Sweep it clean: Bulk delete test donations and donor records with a single click.

  • 📉 Accurate reporting: Ensure your revenue stats are 100% accurate for launch day.

  • ⚙️ Reset sequences: Automatically resets sequential invoice numbering.

donation form New

🏗️ Visual Donation Form Builder

Building the perfect donation form just got easier. We have completely reimagined how you create forms with a new drag-and-drop interface.

Design Visually, in Real-Time

No coding, no guessing. Just point, click, and build.

Say goodbye to confusing settings pages. You can now edit your form and see exactly what your donors will see, instantly.

  • 🖱️ Drag & Drop: Easily add fields like names, addresses, or file uploads by dragging them exactly where you want them.

  • 🎨 Customize everything: Click any field to tweak labels, placeholders, and requirement settings on the fly.

  • 👁️ Live preview: See your changes immediately as you make them—ensure your form flows perfectly before you hit publish.

Flexible & Powerful

Works with all your existing campaigns.

  • 🧩 Deep customization: Add custom HTML, shortcodes, or CSS classes for advanced branding.

  • ⚙️ Smart fields: Collect exactly what you need with support for dropdowns, checkboxes, dates, and hidden fields.

Leaderboards New

🏆 Donor Leaderboards!

Turn your fundraising into a community event. Recognize your most generous supporters and inspire friendly competition with our new leaderboard tools.

Gamify Your Fundraising

Celebrate your top donors and encourage others to climb the ranks.

Create a public “Hall of Fame” to give your donors the recognition they deserve.

  • 🎨 Two stunning layouts: Choose the List View for a clean, data-rich table or the Card View for a modern, visual grid with avatars.

  • 🥇 Automatic highlights: The top 3 supporters get special Trophy and Crown icons to make them stand out.

  • 🧩 Place it anywhere: Add it to any page using the new Gutenberg Block, or drop it directly into your campaign using the Visual Builder.

Total Customization

You decide what to show and what to hide.

  • ⚙️ Flexible data: Choose to display or hide donation amounts, donor counts, or avatars.

  • 🔄 Lifetime stats: Works seamlessly with Recurring Donations to show a donor’s all-time total impact.

Improvement New templates

🎨 New Templates & List Builder

Launch faster and design better. We’ve added three professional campaign templates and a versatile new content block to help you tell your story.

3 New Campaign Templates

Ready-to-use designs for specific fundraising needs.

Don’t start from scratch. Pick a template tailored to your cause and launch in minutes.

  • 🎄 Holiday Fundraiser: A warm, festive design perfect for year-end giving, toy drives, or food pantries.

  • 🎓 School Fundraiser: Built for PTAs and sports teams. clearly highlights goals like playground upgrades or classroom tech.

  • Church Fundraiser: A trustworthy layout designed for building funds, mission trips, and tithes.

The New “List” Block

Organize your campaign details without writing code.

Make your campaign pages easier to scan and more visually engaging with our new builder block.

  • 📝 Flexible layouts: Choose from 3 distinct styles to display sponsorship levels, donation perks, or project goals.

  • 🎨 Rich customization: Add colorful headlines, support for emojis, and unlimited list items.

  • 👣 Smart footers: Include a built-in footer for extra context or a final Call to Action.