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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Improvement receipts

🗓️ Annual Receipts 2.0: Send Year-End Receipts to Every Donor in Minutes

You can now send annual receipts in minutes with a few clicks to all your donors.

📧 One-Click Bulk Send Wizard that guides you to sending to hundreds of donors simultaneously directly from your WordPress dashboard.

🔍 Smart “Dry Run” Mode: See exactly who will receive a receipt and who will be skipped (and why) before a single email leaves your server.

🛡️ SMTP-Aware & Limit Protection: Charitable now detects your email setup and automatically adjusts batch sizes and pauses for daily limits to ensure your emails land in inboxes.

✅ Complete Audit Trail: Dedicated system log and on the individual donor’s profile, giving you a clear history for every fiscal year.

Stop dreading tax season and start spending that time on your mission. Update to Annual Receipts 2.0 and automate your year-end reporting today.

Addon Donations Improvement

🎈Recurring Donations 2.0: Smarter Automation, Better Recovery, and More Control

We’ve completely rebuilt our Recurring Donations system to help you grow your reliable income stream while giving you (and your donors) more powerful tools than ever before.

What’s New:

🔒 Recurring-Only Campaigns: You can toggle “Recurring Only” mode in the campaign builder to hide the one-time option entirely, ensuring your supporters stay focused on long-term commitment.

📧 Automatic Payment Recovery: Our new Payment Failed Email fires automatically the moment a subscription fails.

🛠️ Self-Service Donor Control:The new Cancel Subscription Button appears directly in the donor dashboard, allowing supporters to pause or end their recurring gifts on their own terms—reducing your admin burden and payment disputes.

📊 Real-Time Revenue Insights: Track your growth, monitor active subscriptions, and see exactly how much predictable support is coming in each month at a glance.

Our new Recurring Donations addon gives you the professional-grade tools you need to grow your mission.

Campaigns New

🧡 Modal Donate Button: Turn Any Click into a Contribution

Instead of redirecting users to a new URL, the lightweight Modal Donation Button allows donors to complete their gift in a sleek, focused popup, keeping them engaged with your content while they support your cause.

What’s New:

  • Zero-Friction Giving: Open your donation form in a responsive modal overlay. Donors stay on the same page, reducing drop-off.

  • 🖱️ Place it Anywhere: Use the dedicated WordPress block or a simple shortcode to drop a donate button into sidebars, footers, or even mid-sentence in your storytelling.

  • 🎨 Full Design Control: Match your brand perfectly with customizable background colors, hover effects, border radius, and font sizes—all without touching a single line of CSS.

Whether you need a simple “Donate Now” link or a high-converting popup button, the Modal Donate Button gives you the flexibility to raise more with less effort.

donation form Donations New

💵 Mini Donation Widget: Show The Impact Of Every Dollar!

Not every donor who wants to give will navigate to your campaign page. Meet them exactly where they are by placing a fully functional giving experience directly on any page or post.

💬 Show the impact of every dollar: Attach custom messages to each preset amount so donors understand exactly what their gift provides.
🔄 Monthly and one-time giving: Supports a tabbed interface with independent amounts and impact statements for recurring giving programs.
🎨 Match your brand: Easily set accent colors and control size or alignment to fit the widget naturally into your layout without CSS.
⚡ Reduce donor friction: Open the donation form in a modal overlay to keep donors on the page and reduce drop-off.

Donations Live New

👉🏻 Showcase Real Momentum with the Donations Feed

Give your donors a reason to trust. Our new feed lets you display a living, breathing record of people showing up for your cause.

🤝 Build instant trust: Overcome donor hesitation by showing a proven track record of community support.
💬 Highlight donor stories: Display real donor comments and locations to show the human side of your fundraising.
🛠️ Drop it anywhere: Easily add the block to your homepage, campaign pages, or confirmation screens in seconds.
📈 Curate your feed: Group multiple donations from the same person or sort by highest amounts to encourage larger gifts.