How to Add a Donate Button to your WordPress Website

Do you own a non-profit website? Does your site contain only non-commercial, merely informative content? If so, how can you cover the cost of running such a website or blog? How can you generate the necessary money to maintain your site without ending up using ads which might alter its identity and encourage your visitors to abandon it for good?

If the questions mentioned above have been torturing your mind, then how about accepting donations through your site? Yes! You’ve read this well. Donations are a safe and easy way of generating funds to keep your website live. You will only need a valid PayPal account, some guidance which we will provide, and of course, some loyal visitors who will assist you in your quest. Let’s delve into what it takes to add a donate button to your WordPress site.

What are my options when it comes to adding a donate button to my site?

Well, as almost with anything related to WordPress, your options are two, should you choose to add a “Donate Now” button to your site; you can do it either manually or by using a plugin. In any case, you’re going to need a PayPal account to accept donations and other payments. If you don’t currently have a PayPal account, please head to http://www.paypal.com and click on the “Sign Up” button, to create an account.

Creating a donate button using a Plugin

While there are a plethora of plugins you could use to add a donate button to your WordPress website, we decided to examine, perhaps, the simplest one to let you create your button right away. It’s called “PayPal Donation Button” and delivers exactly what its name implies a simple way to create PayPal Donation Buttons in your site. Let’s see how you can install and configure this plugin:

Step 1) Login to your WordPress Dashboard.

Step 2) Navigate to Plugins >> Add New.

Step 3) Type the words “PayPal Donation Button” in the search box that exists at the upper right of your screen.

Step 4) Locate the “PayPal Donation Button” plugin by gmexsoftware. Install and activate it clicking on the related buttons.

Step 5) As soon as your plugin is installed and activated, navigate to Settings >> PayPal Donation, using the sidebar of your Dashboard.

Step 6) On the plugin settings page:

• Type in the e-mail address you use for your PayPal Transactions,
• Select your preferred currency. It will be U.S. Dollars by default.
• Choose whether you want the PayPal window to open in a new tab or to open in the already existing one (replacing the content your visitor is seeing).
• Click on the “Save Changes“ button.

Step 7: Once you’ve saved your settings, the only thing you have to do is to paste the following shortcode wherever you want your PayPal Donation button to appear.

Here’s your shortcode: [paypal_donation_button]

You paste this shortcode either inside your posts, or it in the widgets sidebar. To do this:

1. Navigate to Appearance >> Widgets.
2. Create a new Text Widget
3. Give it a proper title (if you want)
4. Paste the shortcode inside the content box.
5. Click save.

Your Donation button will now appear on your sidebar.

Are there any more sophisticated plugins for a donation button?

As you might have noticed, the “PayPal Donation Button” presented above, is a plugin that lacks customization options. While it would suffice to website owners who just want a simple donation button for their WordPress websites, other site owners might prefer a more robust solution. That’s why we thought it would be a good idea to provide you with two alternatives which allow you to create more complex donation buttons. These are:

1)    The Seamless Donations Plugin. This plugin offers more control to you over your donation buttons including predefined amounts, repeated donations, donator tracking features, customizable “Thank You” pages.

2)    Gravity Forms. This plugin offers total control over your donation pages, allowing you to create fully customized donation buttons and pages. Gravity Forms is a plugin you can use to create any sorts of forms for your users, which makes it ideal for the creation of 100% unique donation pages.

How to create a PayPal donation button via the official PayPal website

If the idea of adding a plugin for the creation of your donation button to your website doesn’t suit you or if you host your site on WordPress.com, then you should look into creating your donation button manually. To do this, follow these simple steps:

Step 1) Login to your PayPal account

Step 2) Navigate to https://www.paypal.com/buttons/paymentbuttons/donate/create#

Step 3) Fill in the details required to create your donation button. Type your donation Id (Optional), select the size of your button, your language, and country, and choose whether your donate button will ask for your donator’s email or not. When ready, click on the “Save and Get Code” button.

Step 4) On the following screen you will be able to see the code for your donation button. Copy it, and paste it on your site wherever you want the donation button to appear. Make sure you use your text editor because the visual editor might ignore the code you’ve pasted.

That’s it! Your PayPal Donation button is ready. Congratulations!

Some additional thoughts

Now that you know how to create a donate button for your WordPress site, the same knowledge applies if you want to create a simple payment button if you have any clients that use your website. You just use PayPal to accept payments and you can create the button either manually or by tweaking one of the available plugins mentioned above.

Final Thoughts

This concludes our guide on how to create a donate button for your WordPress site. You now know a variety of plugins that you can use to create and add such a button to your site. We particularly loved the PayPal donation button WordPress plugin for its ease of use, and that’s why we decided to showcase it in detail. Feel free to test the remaining ” donate button “ plugins if you want to have more control over your donations and buttons. Speaking of control, you’ve also learned how you can create a donation button via the official PayPal website. That will be all about this subject. We hope you’ve enjoyed our guide. Feel free to share the information you’ve just learned with your friends and fellow WordPress website owners.

Have fun creating your Donation Buttons.