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Drop Any Donation Form Into Any Page with the New Gutenberg Block

Drop Any Donation Form Into Any Page with the New Gutenberg Block

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A visitor is three paragraphs into your best story, the one about the family your program helped last winter. They are moved. They are ready. And then the page ends with a line like: “To donate, click here to visit our campaign page.”

So they click. The page reloads. The moment cools. Some of them give anyway. Many of them do not.

That never sat right with us either.

A donor’s decision to give shouldn’t have to survive a page load.

So we built the new Donation Form block for Charitable Pro 1.8.17: a real, working donation form you can drop onto any page in the WordPress block editor, right at the moment a donor decides to act. No reload, no detour, no second page to lose them on. ⚡

Here’s What It Looks Like

Before we get into how it works, here’s what a page with the Donation Form block actually looks like once it’s styled. This is a real page, built in the block editor with a few clicks of color pickers. No custom CSS, no theme file, no separate plugin.

A styled Donation Form block embedded directly in a WordPress post, with a blue form container and a red Donate Now button matching the page's color scheme.

That’s the whole point. One page, one scroll, one decision. The heading, the story, and the form all live in the same place, so there’s never a moment where a donor has to go looking for the thing they just decided to do.

Why Placing the Form Anywhere Decides Whether the Gift Happens

Every extra click between a donor and the donate button is a place where a gift can quietly disappear, exactly the kind of drop-off donation recovery exists to catch. Redirects, in particular, are where momentum goes to die: the visitor made a decision, and you asked them to make it again on a new page.

The Donation Form block removes that friction. Drop a real, working form onto the exact page a visitor is already on, your homepage, a landing page, or the middle of a blog post, and the distance between “I want to help” and “done” collapses to zero.

You are not rebuilding your campaign. You are meeting donors where their attention already is.

See It in Action

If you’d rather watch than read, here’s the two-minute version of everything below.

When You’ll Feel the Difference

A few places the block turns a page into a place to give:

🏠 Your homepage: Put a compact form above the fold so first-time visitors can give without hunting for a campaign.
📝 A story-driven blog post: End an impact story with the actual form, right where the reader is most moved.
🎯 A dedicated landing page: Build a focused, no-navigation page with a landing page builder like SeedProd for an ad or email campaign, with the form built in.
📣 A campaign-launch announcement: Embed the form in the post that announces the campaign, so the news and the ask share one page.
🧩 A “current campaign” template: Place the block once on a campaign template and let it bind automatically to whichever campaign is being viewed.

A Real Form, Right in the Editor

The block is built for the modern WordPress editing experience, so what you build is what your donors see. Add it the same way you’d add any other block: open the inserter, search, and drop it in.

Searching for the Donation Form block in the WordPress block inserter.

🧩 Any campaign, any page: Pick a published campaign from a dropdown, or choose “Use current campaign” to bind the form dynamically on campaign templates.
👁️ Full-fidelity preview: The editor shows a true-to-life form using the campaign’s real donation amounts, default selection, custom-amount option, and field order, not a gray placeholder.
🎚️ Full or Minimal: Choose the Full form (all fields) or a Minimal, compact layout (amounts and payment) that fits neatly in a sidebar or footer.
⚡ No shortcodes to memorize: Add it from the block inserter like any other block. Existing [charitable_donation_form] shortcodes even convert to the block automatically when you edit them.

Picking the campaign and the form type both happen right in the sidebar, with the live preview updating as you choose:

Choosing a campaign from the Campaign dropdown and switching between Full and Minimal in the Donation Form block settings.

Style It to Match the Page

Because it is a native block, the form bends to fit its surroundings, with nineteen styling controls grouped for clarity. Every control lives in the same block settings sidebar, so you’re never hunting for the right one.

The Donation Form block's styling controls in the sidebar, including Border Style, Typography, and Amount Buttons.

🎨 Form container: Set the background color and a border (style, width, and color) so the form frames itself the way your page needs.
🔤 Typography and accents: Control text and heading color, link color, and even the required-field asterisk color.
🔘 Amount buttons: Style the background, selected state, text, border, and corner radius of your donation amount buttons.
✅ Donate button: Set the button background, hover color, text color, and radius to match your call to action.

Scroll down and you’ll find the Donate Button and Accents groups, including that easy-to-miss required-field asterisk color:

The Donate Button and Accents styling groups, with the required-field asterisk color swatch set to red.

Each block instance gets its own scoped styles, so you can place more than one form across your site, each customized without writing code, and none of them will step on each other’s styling.

Getting Started: Embedding Your First Form

You can have a form live on any page in under a minute. Here’s exactly what that looks like, step by step.

Step 1: Add the Block

Open any page or post, click the block inserter (+), and search for Donation Form.

Step 2: Choose a Campaign

With the block selected, open the block settings sidebar and choose a campaign from the Campaign dropdown, or select Use current campaign.

Selecting a campaign from the Campaign dropdown in the Donation Form block settings.

Step 3: Pick Full or Minimal

Optionally set the Form Type to Full or Minimal, depending on how much room the page gives you.

Step 4: Style It

Style the form using the Form Container, Typography, Amount Buttons, Donate Button, and Accents controls, watching the preview update live.

Step 5: Publish

Publish or update the page. Your working donation form is live.

One note: place a single donation form per page for the cleanest, fastest experience.

Why You’ll Love This

⚡ Zero friction: Donors give on the page they are already reading, with no redirect.
👁️ What you see is what they get: The editor preview reflects the campaign’s real amounts and fields.
🎨 Styled to fit: Nineteen controls let the form match any page, with per-instance scoping.
🔄 Effortless upgrade: Old donation-form shortcodes convert to the block automatically.
🧱 Block-theme friendly: It uses standard block registration and alignment, so it works with block themes and full-site editing.

For Agencies and Developers

Built the WordPress-Native Way

The block is registered as charitable/donation-form with a server-side render_callback, so the front-end output is always the canonical, secure form, not a client-side approximation.

Per-instance CSS is generated through charitable_donation_form_scoped_css(), with dedicated color and length sanitizers, and a recursion guard prevents trouble if a form is ever nested. The block also declares itself to Charitable’s cache layer, so pages containing a live form are automatically excluded from full-page caching, no manual exclusions required.

Shortcode Compatible

A registered transform converts the legacy [charitable_donation_form] shortcode into the block on edit, so migrating existing pages is painless.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this require Charitable Pro? 

Yes. The Donation Form block ships in Charitable Pro 1.8.17 and is not part of the free Lite plugin.

What is the difference between Full and Minimal? 

Full renders the complete donation form with all fields. Minimal is a compact layout (donation amounts and payment) that fits well in tighter spaces like sidebars and footers.

Can I put more than one form on a page? 

For the best, fastest experience we recommend one form per page. Each block instance is style-scoped independently.

Will it work with my block theme or full-site editing? 

Yes. The block uses standard WordPress block registration and alignment support, so it works with block themes and FSE.

Do my existing shortcodes still work? 

Yes, and when you edit a page that uses [charitable_donation_form], it converts to the block automatically.

Get Started with the Donation Form Block

The Donation Form block is available now in Charitable Pro 1.8.17. Open any page or post, add the block, pick a campaign, and start collecting donations right where your donors already are.

Read the Donation Form Block documentation →

More in Charitable Pro 1.8.17

The Donation Form block is one of several ways 1.8.17 makes Charitable more flexible.

Also new:

  • Styles tab for visual restyling
  • Beacon templates and Campaign Hero field
  • Visual donation amounts with per-amount images
  • New fundraising widgets for Elementor, WPBakery, and Divi

Not Yet a Charitable Pro User?

Charitable powers fundraising for organizations worldwide, with more than one million downloads and counting. Charitable Pro gives you the flexibility to collect donations anywhere on your site, exactly the way you want.

What’s New in Charitable

We also launched several powerful features and improvements recently:

📱

Mollie One-Tap Wallet Checkout

Donors on mobile can check out instantly with Apple Pay or Google Pay through Mollie.

Learn More →

🤝

Ambassadors 3.0

New moderation and directory screens let you manage every campaign creator and ambassador in one place.

Learn More →

⚡

Razorpay Integration

Accept donations in India via UPI, QR codes, and major international currencies.

Learn More →

🔔

PushEngage Integration

Built-in push notifications for donation thank-yous, campaign launches, and goal milestones.

Learn More →

🛡️

DonationGuard

Real-time bot detection that flags attacks and blocks bad actors before they hit your donation forms.

Learn More →

🧤

White Glove Migration for GiveWP

Charitable’s team handles your full migration from GiveWP, data and all.

Learn More →

We’ve been adding to Charitable constantly, features and improvements designed to help you raise more and serve your donors better. See everything we’ve shipped at the Charitable Changelog.

If you have any questions or need a hand placing your first form, our support team is ready to help.


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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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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.

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.
Feature New

🎟️ Introducing Charitable Events: Sell Tickets Inside Your Campaigns!

Most nonprofits sell event tickets in one tool and collect donations in another, which leaves two sets of reports and a manual match at the end of the year. Charitable Events brings both together, selling tickets through the same donation forms and payment gateways you already run in Charitable. Why this is important:

  • 🎟️ Every ticket is a donation: Ticket sales run through the gateway you already use and count toward the campaign goal, with everything managed under Charitable » Events.
  • 📱 QR check-in from any phone: Each attendee gets their own QR code on the receipt, and volunteers scan at the door through a check-in link that needs no WordPress account.
  • 🧾 Receipts ready for tax time: Give each ticket type a fair market value, and Charitable puts the correct tax-deductible amount on every donor receipt.
  • 📋 Attendee details at checkout: Ask every guest for a meal choice, shirt size, or access needs, with a separate attendee record created for each ticket.
  • 🗓️ Blocks and calendars included: Three editor blocks plus Sugar Calendar and The Events Calendar support put your events where supporters already look.

Check out our announcement here.

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.
ai New

🚀 Unleash AI Power in Charitable!

Your AI assistant can now build, edit, and manage your Charitable fundraising campaigns directly — just by asking. With Charitable Pro adding write support for the WordPress Abilities API, tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor can handle full administrative actions safely through MCP. Why this is important:

  • 🤖 Campaign creation in plain language: Prompt your assistant with a goal like “Set up a fundraiser for the shelter with a $5,000 goal”, and it builds a real draft campaign complete with suggested donation tiers.
  • 🎨 Instant donation form tweaks: Add custom fields, change button colors, or reorder elements without diving into form settings.
  • 📝 Offline gift logging: Tell your assistant about cash or check gifts, and it will match donor emails and record transactions into your history.
  • 🛡️ Safety and control by default: Write access stays strictly off until turned on in Charitable » Tools » AI MCP, keeping read-only reporting safe by default.
  • 📜 Full audit logging: Every change made by an AI assistant is tracked under Charitable » Tools » Logs, so you always know who (or what) updated your site.

Check out our announcement here.

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 Payments

💰 Accept Recurring Donations with Windcave and Charitable

A donor sets their gift up once on Windcave’s secure payment page, and Charitable bills every renewal after that on schedule. Why this is important:

🏦 Organizations banked in New Zealand or Australia: monthly giving on the gateway your bank already set you up with, with no second processor to onboard.
⛪ Churches taking regular tithes and offerings: congregants set their own schedule once, which is the simplest way to launch recurring church giving without a separate platform.
🌏 Groups with donors in several currencies: Windcave handles more than 20, so a supporter can give in the currency they actually hold.
📅 Operating funds rather than one-time campaigns: switch on Recurring Only mode and the one-off option disappears, so every gift to that campaign is a subscription.
🧾 Teams with no developer on staff: 3 sets of credentials pasted into a settings page, and no code anywhere.

Check out our announcement here.

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 update

⚡ Visual Automation Builder: Drag and Drop With No Code!

Charitable Automation Connect 2.3.0 introduces the Visual Automation Builder, a full-screen canvas that lays each automation out as a flow of connected cards: a trigger, optional conditions, and a list of actions that run in order.

🧩 Many actions, one trigger: Tag a donor, send an email, add a note, and fire a webhook from a single event, dragged into any order.

✉️ Act inside Charitable: New Send Email, Tag Donor, and Add Donor Note actions run with no external service required.

🔤 Merge tags: Personalize emails and notes with live fields like {first_name}, {total}, and {campaign_name}.

🔁 Apply to existing donors: Run Tag Donor and Add Donor Note against the donors you already have.

🖥️ Canvas or Simple: Switch views anytime, and automations built before 2.3.0 keep working unchanged.

Read more here.

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.