Charitable Documentation

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

Charitable Newsletter Connect

With Charitable Newsletter Connect, your donors can opt-in to join your newsletter when they make their donation. Compatible with MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, MailerLite, Mailster and MailPoet (including MailPoet 3).

Installation

Installing Charitable Newsletter 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.

General Setup

After activating Newsletter Connect, you can click on the Settings link to set up the plugin. (Note: You can also get to the plugin settings by going to Charitable > Settings > Extensions.

plugin-setup

On the settings page you will see a list of all available providers.

If you’re using a WordPress newsletter plugin like MailPoet or Mailster, all you need to do is make sure that MailPoet/Mailster is activated. No further configuration is required.

Providers like MailChimp, MailerLite and Campaign Monitor need an API key or other settings in order to be connected.

Screenshot showing how providers are activated & configured.

Set up MailChimp

On the Extensions settings page, click the “Configure” button for MailChimp.

Screenshot of MailChimp configuration

There are two settings you can configure:

  • Your API Key: Find this in your MailChimp account by going to your account page > Extras > API keys. (For more information about MailChimp API keys, read this).
  • Double Opt-in: Set this to “Yes” if you want subscribers to confirm their email address before being added to your newsletter list.

Configure Campaign Monitor

On the Extensions settings page, click the “Configure” button for Campaign Monitor.

Configure Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor requires an API key and a Client ID. You can find both of these by logging into your Campaign Monitor account and going to Account settings > API keys.

Set up MailerLite

On the Extensions settings page, click the “Configure” button for MailerLite.

MailerLite just needs an API key, which you can find in your MailerLite dashboard. Once you have this, copy it into the API key field in the Charitable settings.

Set default settings

After activating or configuring the newsletter providers you want to use, you should configure the default settings for your website. These will be applied to all campaigns, but you can override them on a per-campaign basis.

  • Default List: This is the list that donors will be subscribed to when they opt-in. It will show any available lists from your providers.
  • Default Opt-in Mode: There are three opt-in modes to choose from:
    1. An opt-in checkbox in the donation form which isn’t checked by default.
    2. An opt-in checkbox in the donation form which is checked by default.
    3. Automatic opt-in means that donors do not see a checkbox but are automatically subscribed when they donate.
  • Default Label: The label that will be shown alongside the opt-in checkbox in your donation form.

 

Screenshot showing the default settings for Newsletter Connect.

Sync lists from a provider

Charitable avoids checking for new lists with providers like MailChimp, MailerLite and Campaign Monitor. This improves performance, but it does mean that new lists you create in your provider’s account will not automatically appear as an option in your WordPress dashboard.

To fetch all your lists from a provider, you can use the Sync Lists button.

Screenshot showing how lists can be fetched from a provider like MailChimp or Campaign Monitor in WordPress with Charitable Newsletter Connect.

Setting up per-campaign configurations

You can also configure newsletter signup options on a per-campaign basis. When you edit a campaign, open the Newsletter tab.

Screenshot showing campaign newsletter settings for MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and MailPoet in WordPress.

There are three settings to configure:

  • Disable newsletter signup: Tick this to remove the opt-in for this campaign.
  • Mode: Choose how donors will opt in to your newsletter.
  • Label: Change this to a label you’d prefer instead of the default label you provided.
  • List(s): Select all the lists that you would like your donors to be subscribed to if they opt-in.

Still have questions? We’re here to help!

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.