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Charitable lite update new dashboard

Charitable Lite Update: New Dashboard, Test Mode Alerts & Easy Access Features

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We’re excited to introduce a fresh new look and helpful features exclusively for Charitable Lite users! This update focuses on making your day-to-day fundraising management smoother, more informative, and easier to navigate — all without leaving your WordPress admin.

Fresh New Dashboard Design — All Your Key Data at a Glance

When you log in to your WordPress site and click Charitable in the left menu, you’ll be greeted by the brand-new Lite dashboard. It’s designed to give you a clear overview of your fundraising activity — right inside your site.

Here’s what’s new:

Reports and Analytics Overview: See total donations, average donation, total donors, refunds, and a clear graph showing donation trends over time.

New lite dashboard overview

Switchable Tabs: Easily flip between top campaigns, latest donations, top donors, and campaign comments to stay on top of your donor engagement.

Helpful Sidebar Resources: Find tools to enhance your campaigns, plus the latest Charitable updates.

Enhance your campaign

Quick Access Links: Get instant help with documentation, support, and information on upgrading to Charitable Pro when you’re ready.

Quick access

This dashboard is your new fundraising command center, built to help you take control and grow your campaigns with confidence.

New Test Mode Alert Keeps You in Control

Sometimes you need to test your payment gateways before going live — and that’s why we’ve added a prominently placed Test Mode Active alert.

Charitable test mode active alert

Turn on Test Mode for your gateways, and you’ll see a clear alert box in the top-right corner of your WordPress admin screen. This reminder disappears the moment you switch back to live mode, protecting you from accidental test donations going live.

Test Mode is a crucial feature when setting up or troubleshooting your donation flows, and now you’ll never forget if it’s on or off.

Easily Learn More About Charitable Without Leaving Your Dashboard

We know you want quick answers and easy access to everything Charitable without jumping between websites. So we added a new About Us section inside the Charitable menu in your WordPress admin.

About us

Here’s what’s inside:

  • Meet the team and learn about the story behind Charitable.
  • Browse all available addons right from your dashboard.
  • Access a Getting Started Checklist to help new users set up their first campaigns smoothly.

We added the Getting Started Checklist so that new users always have step-by-step guidance right where they need it. Instead of digging through documentation or searching online, the checklist lives inside your WordPress dashboard, making it easy to access anytime you’re setting up or running your first fundraising campaign.

Getting started

It’s designed to make setup smoother, faster, and less overwhelming—so you can launch your campaign with confidence knowing you haven’t missed an important step.

Everything you need to succeed is now easier to find in one place.

Ready to Experience the Update?

The latest Charitable Lite version is available now. Simply update your plugin in WordPress and get started!

We hope these updates make managing your campaigns easier and more enjoyable. Your feedback always shapes our development, so please keep sharing your thoughts with us!

Stay connected with Charitable for more tips, tutorials, and updates:

Your feedback keeps Charitable moving forward. Thank you for being part of the Charitable community—we’re excited to continue building better tools with you!

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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donation form New

👉🏻 New Campaign Selector For Donation Forms

Take your campaign management to the next level. Find the perfect fundraiser for any page and stay in your creative flow with our new Campaign Selector integration.

The Ultimate Selection Tool

No more hunting for IDs or creating one page for every donation form. Use the new Campaign Selector to allow users to switch to a campaign with no code.

⚡ Instant Search: Quickly find any campaign leaving your page or post.

⚙️ Editor Agnostic: Whether you’re using the Block Editor, Elementor, or WPBakery, selecting your campaigns is now a unified experience.

🚀 Real-Time Previews: See exactly which campaign you’ve selected instantly, ensuring your donors always see the right cause.

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

WordPress Command Palette Integration

Take your fundraising workflow to the next level. Speed up your site management and stay in your creative flow with our new WordPress Command Palette integration.

Supercharge Your Workflow
Navigate your fundraising dashboard faster than ever.

The Ultimate Keyboard Shortcut Hit Cmd + K (or Ctrl + K) to launch the Command Palette and manage your campaigns instantly.

⚡ Instant Navigation: Jump directly to your Campaigns, Donations, or Settings from anywhere in the editor.

➕ Quick Create: Start a new fundraising campaign or add a manual donation with a single command.

Efficiency Redefined
The tools you need, exactly when you need them.

⚙️ Contextual Actions: See relevant Charitable commands based on whether you’re editing a page or viewing your reports.

🚀 Seamless Integration: Built directly into the WordPress core experience for a lightweight, native feel.

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.
Improvement New Security

📣 New Security Features

We’ve introduced a suite of new security tools to give you total control over who accesses your forms, plus a new way to tidy up your database.

Advanced Security Suite

Layered protection: Cloudflare, ReCAPTCHA, IP Controls, and Rate Limiting.

We have overhauled our security settings to stop bots without blocking real donors.

  • 🤖 Flexible Protection: Choose between Google reCAPTCHA v3 or the privacy-first Cloudflare Turnstile to block bots invisible.

  • 🚦 Rate limiting: Stop spam floods by limiting how many submissions an IP address can make in a set timeframe.

  • 🛑 Total control: Use the new IP Blacklist to block bad actors instantly, or the IP Whitelist to let your team bypass checks during testing.

The Clean Donation Tool

Go from “Testing” to “Live” in seconds.

Finished setting up your site and need to get rid of all those test transactions?

  • 🧹 Sweep it clean: Bulk delete test donations and donor records with a single click.

  • 📉 Accurate reporting: Ensure your revenue stats are 100% accurate for launch day.

  • ⚙️ Reset sequences: Automatically resets sequential invoice numbering.

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.
donation form New

🏗️ Visual Donation Form Builder

Building the perfect donation form just got easier. We have completely reimagined how you create forms with a new drag-and-drop interface.

Design Visually, in Real-Time

No coding, no guessing. Just point, click, and build.

Say goodbye to confusing settings pages. You can now edit your form and see exactly what your donors will see, instantly.

  • 🖱️ Drag & Drop: Easily add fields like names, addresses, or file uploads by dragging them exactly where you want them.

  • 🎨 Customize everything: Click any field to tweak labels, placeholders, and requirement settings on the fly.

  • 👁️ Live preview: See your changes immediately as you make them—ensure your form flows perfectly before you hit publish.

Flexible & Powerful

Works with all your existing campaigns.

  • 🧩 Deep customization: Add custom HTML, shortcodes, or CSS classes for advanced branding.

  • ⚙️ Smart fields: Collect exactly what you need with support for dropdowns, checkboxes, dates, and hidden fields.

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.
Leaderboards New

🏆 Donor Leaderboards!

Turn your fundraising into a community event. Recognize your most generous supporters and inspire friendly competition with our new leaderboard tools.

Gamify Your Fundraising

Celebrate your top donors and encourage others to climb the ranks.

Create a public “Hall of Fame” to give your donors the recognition they deserve.

  • 🎨 Two stunning layouts: Choose the List View for a clean, data-rich table or the Card View for a modern, visual grid with avatars.

  • 🥇 Automatic highlights: The top 3 supporters get special Trophy and Crown icons to make them stand out.

  • 🧩 Place it anywhere: Add it to any page using the new Gutenberg Block, or drop it directly into your campaign using the Visual Builder.

Total Customization

You decide what to show and what to hide.

  • ⚙️ Flexible data: Choose to display or hide donation amounts, donor counts, or avatars.

  • 🔄 Lifetime stats: Works seamlessly with Recurring Donations to show a donor’s all-time total impact.

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.