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Introducing Charitable 1.8.4 – New Onboarding, Auto-Color Constract, Donation Form Templates and More!

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We are proud to announce Charitable 1.8.4 (and the newest update 1.8.4.2) – and with it we are making this the go-to tool for non-profits and organizations to run campaigns and get donations!

We have been working hard to improve the Charitable plugin, aiming to make it more accessible for new WordPress users while simultaneously incorporating substantial updates for advanced users and developers. Our recent updates include features that our customers—many of whom are just concluding a busy holiday and charity season—have been requesting.

Now, let’s delve into what’s new.

First-Class Onboarding

When users install Charitable, they are eager to get started. I would be too! The goal of Charitable has always been to get you from new plugin install to having a campaign in 5 minutes or less. And thanks to the new onboarding tool, that’s now possible! 🎉

The new onboarding tool allows you to set up the following quickly:

✅ Activate donor and admin emails.

✅ Confirm currency and country settings.

✅ Add addons with license, and download recommended third-party plugins.

✅ Create a campaign by selecting a template and entering the title, description, goal, and end date!

In combination with the Charitable Checklist, even if you have never used Charitable before you can build a campaign and start accepting donations in just a few minutes.

Auto-Color Contrast For Campaigns

Often when you are customizing the look of your campaign, you want to change the basic colors and build your campaign… but at the same time, you want the text to be easily readable. This is especially true for donation buttons. In Charitable 1.8.4.2, Charitable will automatically adjust the text on donation buttons to whatever has the best contrast (and CSS in your theme or custom CSS can still override).

We hope to roll this feature out to more elements in the campaign builder, so stay tuned.

Donation Form Templates

Donation form templates

For the first time, you can now select a different layout for donation forms – right from Charitable settings with no code. While we offer the standard layout, there is a new “minimal” layout that (along with the setting to remove non-required fields) will make your donation form more compact (perfect for modal donation forms or if you need to fit the form into a tighter space). More layouts are coming – but try these beta features and let us know what you think!

Credit Card Fields Format

If you use Stripe, you’ll be happy to know that you can try our new multiple forms setting which will show the credit card form in four textboxes. This has been a big request from customers! This is currently in beta.

Other Updates

Outside of what was mentioned above, here’s a sampling of items that have been addressed and included since Charitable 1.8.4.

  • NEW: You can now opt-in to data collection to improve Charitable. See “advanced settings” screen for details.
  • FIX: Visual Campaign Builder: Updated documentation links.
  • FIX: Visual Campaign Builder: Adjustments and tweaks to campaigns in Visual Builder (admin and frontend).
  • FIX: Resolved issue involving sanitization of non-english dates in some scenarios resulting in incorrect “days until” calculations.
  • FIX: Resolved an issue involving the “Use This Template” button in a visual campaign when choosing campaigns in some scenarios.
  • FIX: Minor adjustments and tweaks to campaign templates including word breaking and word wrapping in the visual builder.
  • UPDATED: Revised output of the “Your Donations” title that was causing issues for those adding HTML via the ‘charitable_donation_amount_legend’ filter.
  • FIX: Minor translation, misc CSS, UI, and PHP coding updates.

And There You Have It!

Excited to take advantage of the latest Charitable features for your nonprofit organization? Update to the newest version of Charitable on your WordPress site today to optimize your fundraising efforts and simplify the donation process.

If you haven’t started using Charitable yet, there’s no better time to begin! Upgrade your WordPress site with Charitable Pro to elevate your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts with the top donation and donor management plugin available.

We must express our gratitude to our incredible community, comprising diverse charitable organizations, for making this update possible. We sincerely appreciate your ongoing support and feedback. Your commitment to fundraising continues to inspire us.

If you haven’t already upgrade to Charitable Pro – there’s never been a better time. Check out which plan is best for you.

(Want more? We’ve got more updates and surprises coming up for you, so stay tuned!)

author avatar
David Bisset Project Manager
David is the project manager of Charitable since 2022. David works with several non-profits (one operated by his wife) along with managing and developing features, support, and marketing for Charitable. Has been with WordPress since 2006 and has been lead organizer of multiple conferences, events, and meetups.

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New Payments

⚡ Unlock India-Based Donations: Meet Charitable’s Native Razorpay Integration

Trying to collect donations in India? Charitable’s native Razorpay integration features:

⚡ Instant UPI Integration: Accept fast, local donations directly inside your form via apps like PhonePe, Google Pay, Paytm, and BHIM without sending donors away from your site.

📲 Auto-Generated Campaign QRs: Instantly render scannable QR codes encoding a UPI deep link directly on your public campaign pages and sidebars for an effortless “scan-to-give” experience.

💰 Dual Local & Global Reach: Headline your campaigns in INR while seamlessly accepting major international currencies like USD, EUR, GBP, and CAD to maximize global support.

🔁 Seamless Recurring Giving: Fully integrates with the Charitable Recurring addon to manage automatic monthly subscriptions directly through Razorpay without extra code.

↩️ Automatic Two-Way Sync: Keep your books perfectly clean with two-way refund syncing—issue a refund inside WordPress or your Razorpay dashboard and both sides update automatically.

🔒 Webhook-Verified Security: Automatically protect your donation records using HMAC-signed webhook verification to ensure every status update represents real money cleared on the rails.

Visit this page to learn more.

author avatar
David Bisset Project Manager
David is the project manager of Charitable since 2022. David works with several non-profits (one operated by his wife) along with managing and developing features, support, and marketing for Charitable. Has been with WordPress since 2006 and has been lead organizer of multiple conferences, events, and meetups.
Integration New

🎉 New Built-in PushEngage Integration

Struggling with falling email open rates and rising ad costs just to keep your supporters engaged? Charitable’s built-in PushEngage integration features:

🔔 Zero-Fee Direct Messaging: Deliver crisp, instant pop-up notifications straight to your donors’ desktops and mobile devices.

⏱️ Four Smart Automated Triggers: Automatically send updates for immediate donation thank yous, full-list campaign launches, urgent “ending soon” alerts, and goal milestone celebrations.

📈 Group Momentum Broadcasts: Turn private milestones into public wins by automatically broadcasting alerts to your entire subscriber list the moment a campaign hits 50%, 75%, or 100% of its goal.

📊 Automatic Analytics Tracking: Monitor exactly where your incoming notification traffic is coming from with built-in attribution that requires zero complex configuration.

Visit this page to learn more.

author avatar
David Bisset Project Manager
David is the project manager of Charitable since 2022. David works with several non-profits (one operated by his wife) along with managing and developing features, support, and marketing for Charitable. Has been with WordPress since 2006 and has been lead organizer of multiple conferences, events, and meetups.
New Security

💂‍♂️ New DonationGuard 🛡️ Automatically Protects Your Donations!

Worried about card testing attacks or spam bots flooding your donation forms, but don’t want to ruin the giving experience for your real supporters? Charitable’s DonationGuard features:

🛡️ Real-Time Bot Detection: Actively monitors every donation submission for five distinct attack signals without slowing down your human donors.

📊 Smart Traffic Scoring: Instantly evaluates activity against a learned baseline of your site’s normal donation rhythms to catch sneaky, slow-drip card testing.

🚨 Severity-Tiered Alerts: Immediately opens structured “Attack Records” and notifies you via email and admin alerts the moment a campaign starts taking fire.

🎯 Single-Click Defense: Deploy instant security using the “Recommended Settings” preset to turn on Honeypot, Time Trap, and Rate Limit modules all at once.

🚫 Automated Blocklists: Permanently stop repeat offenders by automatically blocking suspicious email addresses based on your customized rules.

Visit this page to learn more.

author avatar
David Bisset Project Manager
David is the project manager of Charitable since 2022. David works with several non-profits (one operated by his wife) along with managing and developing features, support, and marketing for Charitable. Has been with WordPress since 2006 and has been lead organizer of multiple conferences, events, and meetups.
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.

author avatar
David Bisset Project Manager
David is the project manager of Charitable since 2022. David works with several non-profits (one operated by his wife) along with managing and developing features, support, and marketing for Charitable. Has been with WordPress since 2006 and has been lead organizer of multiple conferences, events, and meetups.
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.

author avatar
David Bisset Project Manager
David is the project manager of Charitable since 2022. David works with several non-profits (one operated by his wife) along with managing and developing features, support, and marketing for Charitable. Has been with WordPress since 2006 and has been lead organizer of multiple conferences, events, and meetups.