### [Charitable and AI](https://www.wpcharitable.com/ai/) **Published:** September 17, 2026 **Author:** **Content:** # Describe the fundraiser. Charitable builds it. Connect the ChatGPT or Claude you already use. Ask for a campaign, a receipt for a check that came in the mail, a report on your biggest supporters. It runs on your own site, against your own donor records, and nothing changes until you say so. - No add-on to buy - Works on free AI plans - Read-only until you allow writes - WordPress 6.9+ - Charitable Pro 1.8.18+ [Start Here](#start-here)[Full Instructions](#setup)[Prompts](#prompts)[Safe By Design](#safe)[Operations](#operations)[Watch And Learn](#watch)[FAQ](#faq)[Developers](#developers) ## New To AI? Start Here. If you have used ChatGPT, you already know most of this. Here is what is new, and how to start. Nothing to buy, nothing to install, and no setup inside Charitable. No code, and nothing to set up. You type what you want, the way you would ask a coworker to do it. [View The Full Setup Guide →](https://www.wpcharitable.com/ai-assistants-getting-started/) [What Is WPVibe? →](https://wpvibe.ai/) ### What Is An AI Assistant? A chat window. You describe what you want in plain language and it answers. ChatGPT and Claude both work this way. ### What Changed? Before, an assistant could only give advice about your site. Now it does the work inside Charitable while you watch. ### Why Does It Matter Here? Small teams rarely have a developer on call. Whoever knows what the fundraiser should say can now just describe it. Follow These Steps Five steps, about ten minutes. You only do this once. Step 1 ### Check Your Versions WordPress 6.9 or later, Charitable Pro 1.8.18 or later. On WordPress 6.8 nothing registers and nothing about your site changes. Step 2 ### Add A Connector Your assistant reaches your site through a small bridge. [WPVibe](https://wpvibe.ai/) is a free one that works with Charitable out of the box. Step 3 ### Create An Application Password In WordPress go to Users > Profile and scroll to Application Passwords. Name it after your assistant and copy it straight away, because WordPress shows it once. This section only appears on sites served over HTTPS. Step 4 ### Connect Your Site Give your assistant your site address, your username and that password. If your connector offers a one-click approval link instead, take it, and you never type the password at all. Step 5 ### Turn Write Access On Go to Charitable > Tools > AI MCP and turn on Enable AI write access. Leave it off and you still get a genuinely useful read-only assistant for reporting. And then you just ask“Set up a fundraiser for the animal shelter, $5,000 goal.” That is the whole job. There is no form to fill in, and you never name an operation. Prefer to Watch? The Complete Charitable AI Walkthrough The whole setup in one video, from connecting your assistant to building a campaign by asking, in about six minutes. [Watch on YouTube →](https://youtu.be/WOvoLdJS9EU) ## Full Instructions The five steps above are the whole setup. These guides go deeper, and cover every operation in full. [★ Setup ### Getting started with AI assistants Connect an assistant in five steps, with write access off until you turn it on.](https://www.wpcharitable.com/ai-assistants-getting-started/)[★ Reference ### AI assistants in Charitable: the full reference Every operation, how permissions map to roles, and what is deliberately out of reach.](https://www.wpcharitable.com/ai-assistants-learn-more/)[★ Everything Else ### All Charitable documentation Every guide for the plugin and its add-ons, in one place.](https://www.wpcharitable.com/documentation/) ## Prompts To Try Copy any of these and change the details to match your own fundraising. Ask in your own words if you prefer, because you never need to name an operation or fill in a form. ### Build a campaign Needs write accessCopyCopied Set up a fundraiser for the animal shelter, $5,000 goal, ending at the end of next month You get a real campaign in the Campaign Builder, from a template the assistant picks from your words, with suggested amounts scaled to your goal. It arrives as a draft. Needs write accessCopyCopied Create a campaign for our winter coat drive with a $2,500 goal Needs write accessCopyCopied What campaign templates can I choose from? ### Customize the donation form Needs write accessCopyCopied Add a question asking how they heard about us Needs write accessCopyCopied Make that a dropdown instead: Facebook, a friend, or our newsletter. Default it to our newsletter. Choice fields can carry their own options and a pre-selected default, in one request. Needs write accessCopyCopied Make that campaign’s donate button green Only the button changes. Nothing else moves. Needs write accessCopyCopied Move the phone number field above the payment section ### Record a gift that came in offline Needs write accessCopyCopied Someone posted a check for $250 from Jane Smith, record it It will ask for the donor's email address, and it should, because donors are matched on email and inventing one would split or merge real records. Needs write accessCopyCopied Record a $1,000 cash donation to the winter coat drive ### Ask about your fundraising Works read onlyCopyCopied Who are our biggest supporters? Ranked over your whole history. Never includes an email or postal address. Works read onlyCopyCopied Which campaign has raised the most? Works read onlyCopyCopied What did we raise last month compared to the month before? Works read onlyCopyCopied How many donors gave more than once this year? Works read onlyCopyCopied Show me a day by day breakdown for the winter coat drive ### Diagnose a problem Works read onlyCopyCopied Why aren’t my donations showing up? It reads your gateway and test-mode status, so you get a real diagnosis instead of a guess. Works read onlyCopyCopied Is my site still in test mode? Works read onlyCopyCopied Which payment gateways are set up? Works read onlyCopyCopied What can my Charitable site do? ## Safe By Design Nothing is exposed to anyone who could not already do it in your dashboard. Every operation checks a Charitable capability before it runs. ### Changes are off until you turn them on A connected assistant reads immediately and cannot change anything until an administrator enables write access under Charitable > Tools > AI MCP. Ask it to build something with the gate off and it refuses, then tells you the exact switch to flip. ### Payment credentials are never readable Your Stripe, PayPal and Square keys are not in anything an assistant can see, whoever is asking. ### Donor lists never include email or postal addresses Reading a named donor’s contact details needs the sensitive-data capability, so one permitted read cannot become a bulk export of your donor file. ### There is no permanent delete for a campaign An assistant can move one to the trash, which is reversible, and nothing more. It also refuses to trash a campaign that already has donations unless you confirm. ### New campaigns are drafts Unless you ask for otherwise, so nothing goes live by accident. ### Every change is logged Charitable > Tools > Logs, filtered to Abilities, records what an assistant did. Charitable > Tools > System Info has an Abilities API section, the first place to look if a client connects but cannot see your data. ## What You Can Do With AI In Charitable Right Now Most of them read, a handful write, and every one is registered with the core WordPress Abilities API. Charitable registers over 25 operations, most of them read-only. Writes stay off until an administrator turns them on. Charitable operations by group, as registered with the WordPress Abilities API.GroupWhat it coversReadsWritesTotalDiagnosticsPlugin and licence info, site environment, and gateway status. Never keys or secrets.303CampaignsList, read, create, update, status, trash and restore, plus donation form fields and Design styles.6814DonationsList, read, record a gift that came in offline, and summarise totals.314DonorsList donors and totals, and read one donor in full where permitted.303ReportsOverview, day-by-day activity, top campaigns, top donors, and named date ranges.505All groupsEverything registered today.20929Each operation carries a description written for the assistant, telling it when that operation is the right choice and what its values mean. The complete list, how permissions map to roles, and what is deliberately out of reach are all in [the full reference](https://www.wpcharitable.com/ai-assistants-learn-more/). ## Watch And Learn Short walkthroughs of Charitable and AI. Click any thumbnail to play it here. [Visit Our YouTube Channel →](https://www.youtube.com/@wpCharitableFundraising) AnnouncementBuild a Fundraiser Just by AskingShortYour WordPress Site, Now Run by AI ## Frequently Asked Questions The things people ask before connecting an assistant to a live fundraising site. **Do I need to install a Charitable add-on for this?**No. There is no add-on to buy, nothing to install, and no setup inside Charitable at all. If you are running Charitable Pro 1.8.18 or later on WordPress 6.9 or later, the operations are already registered and waiting for a client to connect. **Which AI assistants work with Charitable?**Any assistant that reads the WordPress Abilities API. Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor are the ones we have used. Charitable did not build an integration with one company’s AI, so when a new client appears it works with Charitable on day one with nothing for you or us to do. **Can an assistant see my donors’ email addresses?**Donor lists never include email or postal addresses, whoever is asking. Reading one named donor’s contact details requires the sensitive-data capability, so a single permitted read cannot become a bulk export of your donor file. **Could an assistant reach my payment keys or move money?**No. Your Stripe, PayPal and Square credentials are not included in anything an assistant can see. It can tell you which gateways are enabled and whether each is configured, and nothing more. **Can an assistant delete one of my campaigns?**There is no permanent delete. An assistant can move a campaign to the trash, which is reversible, and that is all. It will also refuse to trash a campaign that already has donations unless you confirm. **How do I stop an assistant making changes?**Changes are off until you switch them on. A newly connected assistant can read everything and change nothing until an administrator enables write access under Charitable > Tools > AI MCP. You can turn it back off whenever you like, and reads keep working either way. **How do I see what an assistant actually did?**Go to Charitable > Tools > Logs and filter to Abilities. Every change an assistant makes is recorded there. Charitable > Tools > System Info also has an Abilities API section, which is the first place to look if a client connects but cannot see your data. **What happens if I am still on WordPress 6.8?**Nothing registers and nothing about your site changes. The Abilities API arrived in WordPress 6.9, so 6.9 is the floor for any of this to work. ## For Developers An AI assistant is only one consumer of the Abilities API. Everything here is reachable from your own code. None of this is Charitable-specific plumbing. Charitable registers its operations with the [WordPress Abilities API](https://developer.wordpress.org/apis/abilities-api/), which landed in core in WordPress 6.9. Any plugin can describe what it can do, and any connected client reads the same description. ### An AI assistant is only one consumer Every operation is equally reachable from your own PHP, from WP-CLI, or from any HTTP client. If you have been writing custom queries against Charitable’s tables to build a report, an ability is a supported alternative that fires the plugin’s own validation and capability checks. ### The write gate is a filter It defaults to the `ai_mcp_write_enabled` setting, which is off on a site that has never set it, and you can override it in code. This is the clean way to guarantee an assistant can never write on production while leaving it on in staging. ``` add_filter( 'charitable_abilities_allow_write', function ( $enabled ) { if ( function_exists( 'wp_get_environment_type' ) && 'production' === wp_get_environment_type() ) { return false; } return $enabled; } ); ``` The gate keys off each operation’s own `readonly` annotation rather than a list of operation names, so a write operation added in a later release is covered by that filter automatically. Permission checks are separate and always run: every operation tests a Charitable capability before it does anything, so the gate sits on top of your role setup rather than replacing it. ## This Is Just The Start Charitable Pro 1.8.18 covers campaigns, donations, donors and reports. Support for the add-ons is next, and this page is where each one gets documented as it lands. [Get Started With AI →](https://www.wpcharitable.com/ai-assistants-getting-started/) Beyond This Page### All Charitable Documentation Every guide for the plugin and its add-ons, in one place. [ Open The Documentation → ](https://www.wpcharitable.com/documentation/) Machine-readable: [this page as Markdown](https://www.wpcharitable.com/ai.md) · [site index](https://www.wpcharitable.com/llms.txt) × ---