Charitable Documentation

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

Charitable Easy Digital Downloads Connect

Charitable Easy Digital Downloads Connect allows you to raise money for causes using Easy Digital Downloads.

Installation

Installing Charitable Easy Digital Downloads Connect 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.

Creating contribution rules

  1. Go to Charitable Campaigns if you are editing an existing campaign, or Charitable > Add Campaign to create a new campaign.
  2. On the campaign editing page, look for the + Add New Contribution Rule button inside the Donation Options tab. Clicking on that will open up a little form where you can enter how much should be contributed (either as a fixed $ amount or a %), which products it applies to, as well as the start and end date for the rule. The end date can be left blank to have it as an open-ended rule.

    Creating a contribution rule with Charitable Easy Digital Downloads Connect
    Creating a contribution rule with Charitable Easy Digital Downloads Connect
  3. Click Save Draft. 
  4. After the page reloads, scroll down to the Donation Options tab. There will be some new settings there since you create a contribution rule. These basically allow you to add a section at the bottom of the campaign page where people can see the products they can purchase to contribute to the campaign.

Showing the contribution note with download purchase buttons

Product contribution note in Checkout theme
Product contribution note in Checkout theme

An optional setting you can enable is to add a note to download purchase buttons that shows how much will be contributed to fundraising campaigns. This is how you set that up:

  1. Go to Charitable > Settings.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the settings. You will see an option to decide whether you want to show much each download is contributing to the cause. Tick the box to enable it.
  3. Click Save Changes to update your settings.

If you enable that, it adds a little note below the standard EDD purchase button.

A note about gateways

When Charitable Easy Digital Downloads Connect is activated, all donations / contributions are made through the EDD checkout. Charitable can be used without EDD and has its own gateways to support that, but we disable all those when EDD is running to keep everything part of a single checkout experience.

Creating donations in Test Mode

If you have Easy Digital Downloads set to use Test Mode, donations are not automatically created for payments. Donations are only created for live payments.

If you’d like to have donations created for test payments, you can use the following line of code:

add_filter( 'edd_log_test_payment_stats', '__return_true' );
If you’re unsure how to add this code, the easiest option is to use the Code Snippets plugin and add this as a snippet.

Still have questions? We’re here to help!

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GiveWP Migrations New

White Glove Migration Service for GiveWP

Thinking about switching your fundraising platform from GiveWP to Charitable, but don’t want to risk losing your data or handle a complex technical setup yourself? Charitable’s White Glove Migration Service features:

👥 Flawless Donor Mapping: Safely transfer your entire supporter database with zero data loss.

📊 Complete Financial History: Meticulously preserve every historical transaction for continuous, accurate reporting.

🔄 Seamless Recurring Giving: Safely transfer active sustaining subscriptions without disrupting your incoming revenue or requiring your donors to update their information.

💳 Zero Gateway Disruptions: Keep using Stripe, PayPal, or any other GiveWP-compatible processor you already love.

🚀 Expert Technical Setup: Relax while our team handles the heavy lifting to install and configure your forms—plus, qualifying users get a full year of Charitable Pro completely free.

Visit this page to learn more.

automation Improvement

📢 New Feature Alert: Automation Connect 2.0 Is Here! 🚀

Thinking about connecting your fundraising data to tools like Mailchimp, Slack, or Google Sheets, but don’t want to hire a developer or write custom code? Charitalbe’s new automation addon has:

⚡ 17 Event Triggers: Instantly fire webhooks for a donor’s first gift, renewal payments, or reached campaign milestones.

🎯 Smart Conditional Logic: Use powerful AND/OR logic across 11 fields to only send data when it meets your exact criteria, like newsletter opt-ins.

📊 Custom Payload Control: Select from 80+ clean data fields across donor, donation, and campaign metadata so your apps get exactly what they need.

🚀 Pre-Built Platform Templates: Skip the setup from scratch with ready-to-go templates for Zapier, Make.com, n8n, HubSpot, and Slack.

🛡️ Reliable Developer Tools: Power your workflows with signed HMAC-SHA256 payloads, complete WordPress filters, and automatic retry logs.

automation Improvement

🔌 Charitable Meets Zapier: Connect to 7,000+ Apps and Automate Your Fundraising

Tired of manually copying donation data into accounting sheets or tracking down new donor signups? Put your administrative tasks on autopilot. Charitable is now officially on Zapier, giving you a powerful, no-code way to plug your fundraising directly into the rest of your favorite tools.

Every donation, donor signup, and campaign milestone can now trigger an automated workflow seamlessly.

What’s New:

♾️ Connect to 7,000+ Apps: Bridge your Charitable campaigns with everyday software like Google Sheets, QuickBooks, Slack, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Notion, Airtable, and thousands more.

⚡ 12 Powerful Triggers: Build deep workflows using smart automation triggers covering the entire donation lifecycle—including New Donation, New Donor, Subscription Cancelled, and Campaign Goal Reached.

📋 Pre-Built Action Templates: Get started in three minutes or less with our pre-made template combinations, like automatically logging new donations straight into a Google Sheet or firing custom donor welcome emails through Gmail.

🚫 Zero Code Needed: No complex webhooks or custom PHP scripts required. Just pick your trigger, choose your app, map your fields, and let Zapier handle the heavy lifting.

Ready to save hours of admin time? Grab Charitable Pro with the Automation Connect addon today and launch your first Zap!

Improvement Payments

🚀 Introducing PayPal Commerce: One Connection, Six Ways to Donate

Donors expect modern, flexible payment options when they support a cause. If they don’t see their preferred method on your donation form, they often disappear without a word. With PayPal Commerce, we are bringing a completely modernized checkout experience right to your campaigns.

Enjoy a single integration that upgrades your forms, makes giving seamless, and helps you capture every single donation.

What’s New:

🔌 One-Click Connection: Skip messy API keys and developer docs. Simply click “Connect with PayPal,” sign in to your business account, and your modern form is live in under five minutes.

💳 Six Ways to Give: Give your supporters instant access to PayPal balance, Venmo (US), Pay Later financing, major credit/debit cards, Apple Pay (Safari), and Google Pay (Chrome) all from the exact same form.

🔄 Flexible Recurring Giving: Fully supports monthly giving. Choose between the PayPal Subscriptions API (handled automatically on PayPal’s end) or Vault + Cron (handled securely right on your site).

💬 Friendly Error Recovery: No more confusing browser alerts. If a payment is declined, donors see plain-language, inline messages that guide them on how to fix the issue and complete their gift.

Ready for PayPal, modernized? Update to Charitable Pro 1.8.15+ (or Charitable Lite 1.8.11+) and connect your account today!

Campaigns New

⏳ Campaign Countdown: Drive Urgency and Lift Donations

Urgency is one of the most powerful tools in fundraising! Meet Campaign Countdown—a live, real-time timer built to turn procrastination into immediate generosity.

campaign_countdown_animation

What’s New:

⏱️ Live, Real-Time Urgency: Beautifully track days, hours, minutes, and seconds down to your campaign’s deadline w/ live-updating visual countdowns.

🎨 Tailored to Your Look: Choose between Boxed bordered tiles or a clean, single-line Inline display. Match your theme instantly with font and deep color controls.

🛠️ Place it Anywhere: Drop the countdown anywhere you like using the Campaign Builder field, a dedicated Gutenberg block, or a simple shortcode.

🚨 Smart Expiry Actions: Total control over the end state—choose to automatically replace the timer with a custom message, freeze it at zero, and more.