We are thrilled to announce new security features now included in Charitable (Lite) version 1.8.9. You can now protect your donation forms, registration pages, and campaign creation flows from spam and abuse.
Security is essential for any non-profit collecting funds online and we believe that every organization deserves to fundraise securely. That’s why, starting with version 1.8.9, we have provided a fundamental CAPTCHA feature (and a new tool) designed to help stop bots while keeping the donation experience smooth for your real supporters.
New CAPTCHA Feature
We know that “one size fits all” doesn’t apply to security. Some sites prefer Google’s tools, while others prioritize privacy-focused alternatives. The new update supports four different CAPTCHA providers, giving you the freedom to choose what works best for your donors:
- Google reCAPTCHA v3 (Invisible): Our recommended option. It analyzes user behavior in the background to assign a “risk score,” blocking bots without ever interrupting the user.
- Google reCAPTCHA v2 (Invisible): A reliable, well-established solution that only challenges suspicious traffic.
- Cloudflare Turnstile: A free, privacy-focused alternative from a trusted source that is very easy to enable (Cloudflare also provided additional protections much of which is included in their free plan).
- hCaptcha: A popular privacy-first alternative to Google.
User-Friendly Settings
We’ve also included granular controls to ensure you aren’t annoying your team or loyal donors. You can easily toggle the “Require captcha for logged-in users” setting to “No,” ensuring that your administrators and registered members can interact with your site without jumping through hoops.
New Donation Tool
Charitable has a new tool to allow you to remove any unwanted pending or failed donations. You will find this in the “tools” menu under the “misc” tab. With this tool you can select the type of donation you want to remove along with a date range. This tool can help if you were experienced past issues with fake donations or just want to get rid of test donations.
Spam Blocker Users
If you are currently using the Spam Blocker addon with your paid license please note that the Spam Blocker addon settings will take priority over the built-in Lite security features to prevent conflicts.
Not using Charitable yet? Check out Charitable Lite for free. It has all the essentials that you need. Sign up for free and explore Charitable Lite now.
What Even More Protection? Upgrade to Charitable Pro!
For even more robust protection, consider updating to Charitable Pro, which offers advanced rate limiting, expanded CAPTCHA options, IP address blacklisting/whitelisting, dedicated rate limiting for Stripe, and more comprehensive security features that go far beyond what the legacy Spam Blocker addon provides – all built directly into the plugin.
You get a 14-day money back guarantee so you can try Pro risk-free today.
We’d Love to Hear From You!
The security updates and tools in the Charitable (Lite) 1.8.9 are part of our commitment to democratizing fundraising tools for non-profits. We want you to focus on your mission, not on dealing with spam donations.
We’d love to hear how these new features are working for you! We are committed to continuously improving Charitable based on your needs. If you have feedback on the new security settings or ideas for what we should tackle next, please reach out and let us know. Your input directly guides our development roadmap for 2026.
Leave a Reply