Automation Connect turns every donation, campaign event, or form submission into a real-time trigger that sends data to any app or service via webhooks. Connect Charitable with Zapier, Make.com, Slack, HubSpot, Mailchimp, n8n, Pabbly Connect, and thousands of other platforms – no developer required.

Requirements: Pro/Elite plan and Charitable Pro 1.8.13+.

Note: If you are using Charitable Automation 1.x, we have the documentation available here.

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Key Features (vs 1.x version)

• Trigger webhooks on 17 donation, campaign, and recurring-donation events
• Filter deliveries with conditional logic across 11 criteria fields (donor, donation, campaign, form data)
• Customize the payload with 80+ available data fields covering donor, campaign, donation, and gateway details
• Sign every outgoing request with HMAC-SHA256 for endpoint security
• Send test payloads and inspect delivery responses directly from the editor
• Start quickly with 8 pre-built platform templates (Zapier, Make.com, Slack, HubSpot, Mailchimp, n8n, Pabbly Connect, and a blank canvas)
• Retry failed deliveries automatically via WordPress Action Scheduler
• Manage all subscriptions from a central dashboard in the Charitable admin

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Why Use Automation Connect?

Charitable Automation Connect replaces manual data entry and one-off custom integrations with a single, flexible webhook system. Instead of writing custom code every time you want to sync donor records, notify a Slack channel, or add contacts to a CRM, you configure a subscription once and it runs automatically on every matching event.

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Verlo en acción

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Requirements

• Charitable Pro 1.8.13 or later
• Active Charitable Pro license (Pro plan or higher)
• WordPress 6.2 or later
• PHP 7.4 or later

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Empezar

Installation and Activation

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Charitable > Extensions.
2. Locate Automation Connect and click Activate.
3. Once active, a new Automation item appears in the Charitable admin menu.

Creating Your First Subscription

1. Go to Charitable > Automation in wp-admin.
2. Click + Add New Subscription.
3. Select a platform template or choose Start from scratch.
4. Configure the subscription in the editor (see Usage below).
5. Click Save to activate the subscription.

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Uso

Subscription Editor

Each subscription is configured across four tabs:

Basic Tab

Set the subscription name, the target webhook URL, and the trigger event.

Available Events — Donations

Evento	Description
donation_created	A new donation is submitted
donation_completed	A donation reaches Completed status
donation_cancelled	A donation is cancelled
donation_failed	A donation payment fails
donation_refunded	A donation is refunded
donation_pending	A donation is set to Pending
donation_preapproved	A donation is pre-approved

Available Events — Campaigns

Evento	Description
campaign_created	A new campaign is published
campaign_updated	An existing campaign is updated
campaign_ended	A campaign reaches its end date
campaign_goal_achieved	A campaign hits its fundraising goal

Available Events — Recurring Donations

Evento	Description
recurring_created	A new recurring plan is created
recurring_completed	A recurring payment completes
recurring_cancelled	A recurring plan is cancelled
recurring_failed	A recurring payment fails
recurring_paused	A recurring plan is paused
recurring_resumed	A paused plan resumes

Conditions Tab

Add rules to control when the webhook fires. All rules within a group use AND logic; multiple groups use OR logic.

Available Condition Fields

Field	Operators
donation_amount	is, isnot, greaterthan, less_than
donation_status	is, is_not
campaign_id	is, is_not
campaign_category	is, is_not
payment_gateway	is, is_not
donor_country	is, is_not
donor_email	is, is_not, contains
newsletter_optin	is (yes/no)
donation_type	is (one-time, recurring)
recurring_period	is, is_not
custom_field	is, is_not, contains

Payload Tab

Choose exactly which fields to include in the outgoing JSON payload. Uncheck fields you don’t need to keep payloads lean.

Donor Fields (sample)

donor_id, donor_name, donor_first_name, donor_last_name, donor_email, donor_phone, donor_address, donor_city, donor_state, donor_postcode, donor_country, donor_total_donated, donor_donation_count

Donation Fields (sample)

donation_id, donation_amount, donation_status, donation_date, donation_time, donation_currency, donation_gateway, donation_gateway_transaction_id, donation_notes, donation_type, campaign_ids, campaign_names

Campaign Fields (sample)

campaign_id, campaign_title, campaign_url, campaign_goal, campaign_donated, campaign_percent_raised, campaign_donor_count, campaign_start_date, campaign_end_date, campaign_categories

Recurring Fields (sample)

recurring_id, recurring_amount, recurring_period, recurring_frequency, recurring_start_date, recurring_status

Site/Meta Fields (sample)

site_url, site_name, event_type, delivery_timestamp, webhook_id

Test / Debug Tab

Send a test payload using real or sample data and inspect the HTTP response code, response body, and delivery time. This lets you verify your endpoint is receiving data before going live.

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Platform Templates

When creating a new subscription, you can start from one of eight pre-built templates. Each template pre-fills the event trigger and, where applicable, adds sensible default conditions.

Plantilla	Default Event	Notas
Zapier	donation_created	Pre-configured for Webhooks by Zapier Catch Hook
Make.com	donation_created	Pre-configured for Custom Webhook module
n8n	donation_created	Pre-configured for n8n Webhook node
Pabbly Connect	donation_created	Pre-configured for Pabbly webhook trigger
HubSpot	donation_created	Pre-configured for HubSpot workflow webhook
Mailchimp	donation_created	Adds newsletter opt-in condition by default
Slack	donation_created	Pre-configured for Slack Incoming Webhooks
Start from scratch	(none)	Full control over all settings

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Webhook Delivery

Request Format

Webhooks are delivered as HTTP POST requests with a JSON body and the following headers:

Header	Valor
Content-Type	application/json
X-WP-Webhook-Signature	HMAC-SHA256 signature
X-WP-Webhook-Event	Event slug (e.g., donation_created)
X-WP-Webhook-ID	Subscription post ID

Signature Verification

Every request includes an X-WP-Webhook-Signature header. The signature is a lowercase hex HMAC-SHA256 of the raw JSON payload body, keyed with the subscription’s secret key.

To verify in PHP:

$signature = hash_hmac( 'sha256', $raw_body, $secret_key );
$is_valid   = hash_equals( $signature, $received_signature );

Retry Behavior

Failed deliveries (non-2xx responses or connection errors) are retried automatically using WordPress Action Scheduler. The retry schedule uses exponential backoff. After the maximum number of retries, the delivery is marked as permanently failed and logged.

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Personalización

CSS

The Automation Connect admin UI inherits standard Charitable and WordPress admin styles. No frontend CSS is output.

Anulaciones de plantillas

Automation Connect has no public-facing templates. All output is JSON payloads delivered server-side.

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Solución de problemas

Webhook is not being delivered

Check the following in order: 1. Confirm the subscription is saved and the event type matches what you expect (e.g., donation_completed, not donation_created). 2. Verify the webhook URL is publicly accessible — local localhost URLs will not work from a live server. 3. Check Charitable > Tools > Logs for delivery errors, filtering by source charitable-automation-connect.

The test payload sent successfully but live events are not triggering

Conditions may be filtering out live events. Open the Conditions tab and review each rule. Temporarily disable all conditions to confirm the webhook fires, then re-add conditions one at a time.

Payload fields are missing from the JSON

Uncheck and re-check the relevant fields in the Payload tab, then save. Fields added to Charitable via third-party plugins may need to be registered using the charitable_automation_connect_payload_fields filter (see Developer Resources).

License notice is appearing in the admin

Automation Connect 2.0 requires an active Charitable Pro license at the Pro plan level or above. If you see a license notice, verify your license is active at Charitable > Settings > Licenses and that your plan is Pro or higher.

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Developer Resources

Hooks and Filters

Payload

• charitable_automation_connect_payload_fields — Filter the list of available payload fields. Use this to add custom fields from your plugin or theme.
• charitable_automation_connect_payload — Filter the payload array before delivery. Receives $payload, $subscription_id, $event.

Eventos

• charitable_automation_connect_events — Filter the list of available trigger events. Add or remove event definitions.
• charitable_automation_connect_before_deliver — Fires before a webhook is dispatched. Receives $subscription_id, $event, $payload.
• charitable_automation_connect_after_deliver — Fires after a webhook is dispatched. Receives $subscription_id, $response, $payload.

Conditions

• charitable_automation_connect_condition_fields — Filter available condition fields. Use this to register custom condition criteria.

Plantillas

• charitable_automation_connect_templates — Filter the list of platform templates shown in the template picker. Add custom pre-configured templates.

License / Delivery

• charitable_automation_connect_delivery_blocked — Filter whether delivery is blocked. Return false to allow delivery regardless of license state (useful for testing).

Useful Functions

• charitable_automation_connect() — Returns the main plugin instance.
• charitable_automation_connect()->get( 'subscriptions' ) — Returns the SubscriptionsRepositoryinstance for querying active subscriptions.

Adding Custom Payload Fields

add_filter( 'charitable_automation_connect_payload_fields', function( $fields ) {
    $fields['my_custom_field'] = array(
        'label'   => __( 'My Custom Field', 'my-plugin' ),
        'group'   => 'donor',
        'resolve' => function( $event_data ) {
            return get_user_meta( $event_data['donor_user_id'], 'my_meta_key', true );
        },
    );
    return $fields;
} );

Adding Custom Events

add_filter( 'charitable_automation_connect_events', function( $events ) {
    $events['my_custom_event'] = array(
        'label'       => __( 'My Custom Event', 'my-plugin' ),
        'group'       => 'donations',
        'description' => __( 'Fires when my custom condition occurs.', 'my-plugin' ),
    );
    return $events;
} );

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Additional Resources

• Charitable Pro — Getting Started