Although most people associate donations with nonprofits or charities, anyone can accept a donation for almost anything. 

If you run a website of any kind, here’s the good news:

You can accept donations on your website to support yourself and your online business. If you use WordPress, it’s a simple matter of adding a donate button in the right places on your website. 

Here you’ll learn:

• What a donation button is
• What kind of donations you can accept
• How to add a donation button to your WordPress website with the donations block
• What other plugins will help you accept donations on your website 

What Is a Donate Button?

A donate button is an easy-to-click button that will take you to a donation page. On WordPress, this donation button might take you to Stripe, PayPal, or another service that handles sending or receiving money. 

Why the Donation Button Matters

The donate button is a consistent way to ask donors for a gift. It’s a passive call-to-action that doesn’t seem pushy or obnoxious.

Because a donation button is recognizable and ideally easy to find and use, you don’t need to worry about advertising or explaining it to your audience.

Types of Donations You Can Accept

Any amount of money counts as a donation as long as  it’s not being used to purchase a product or service. Accepting donations does not make your blog or website a charity or nonprofit — it’s simply a show of support for whatever you’re doing.

Here are a few reasons a website might solicit donations:

• Professional endeavors like obtaining a degree, obtaining certification, or visiting a conference.
• Everyday passions, such as creating art or other hobbies.
• Nonprofits relying on donations to keep running.
• Creations with a physical outcome, such as a video game or short movie.
• Creative pursuits such as writing or attempting to be published.
• Professional bloggers funding their web hosting and collaborations.

Remember, even if you’re collecting donations through your website, you should not stop interacting with your visitors, and you should not let your platform stagnate. 

Why You Should Use the Donations Block

Now it’s easier than ever to accept donations through your WordPress website — no more worrying about whether the plugin you’re using will work.

In the past, you had to use PayPal or other third-party resources to collect donations. But, with Jetpack’s Donations block, you no longer need to rely on PayPal. 

Instead, Jetpack’s Donations block connects to Stripe, an online payment processing platform. Your donors can decide if they want to use a debit or credit card, or set up a recurring donation. 

Your donors won’t have to log into Stripe either — it’s all handled in the Donations block.

How to Set Up the WordPress Donations Button

Most donation plugins require you to have a WordPress website with a paid plan. 

To get started with this specific WordPress donation solution, start by setting up a Stripe account. 

Next, head over to Jetpack. Jetpack is a WordPress toolkit that helps users improve the design, security, and traffic of their website. It can be installed on your website like any other WordPress plugin. 

Jetpack’s core features are available for free, but to use the Donation block, you will need to purchase a Jetpack Security or Complete plan, which starts at $20 per month.

Once you have activated your plan, you’ll be able to add a Donation block from the Jetpack section of the block editor.

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Add your Donation block, then configure it. Everything can be edited, even the text.  Set up three donation amounts that visitors can choose from, and make sure you set the currency to your local currency. 

Hit Publish, and from there, you can manage your earnings, supporters, and other metrics in the Earn dashboard.

Jetpack Donations Block vs. Other Donation Plugins

There are dozens of WordPress-enabled donation plugins available. 

So why choose Jetpack’s Donation block?

As previously mentioned, many websites use PayPal. The PayPal Donations plugin is appealing for many because it’s free to use. 

However, free is never truly free. PayPal will charge you 30 cents per donation, and 2.9% of every donation as a processing fee.

Beyond that, you can only receive payment through PayPal, and you won’t be able customize the donate button. 

Charitable is another popular donation plugin. However, this plugin is specifically for fundraising campaigns, and geared toward larger nonprofit organizations. 

Another well-known donation plugin is GiveWP. They offer similar features to Jetpack’s Donation block, and the pricing is similar to what you would pay for the basic Jetpack Security plan. 

However, with the Jetpack plan, you’re not just getting a donation plugin. You get a full suite of plugins that will enhance your website overall. 

With a Jetpack membership, you get security features that will protect your website and your data. You’ll get real-time backups, automatic scans for malware, and one-click fixes that will keep your website ahead of any security threats. Jetpack’s packages also allow you to automatically block spam from comments and forms. 

Your website’s performance will be improved while using Jetpack. You’ll see better load time and search engine optimization. Best of all, all of Jetpack’s features can be implemented with minimal coding knowledge. 

Bonus Plugins to Encourage Donations

Alongside Jetpack’s Donation block, you may want to consider other plugins that will help garner more donations through your website. 

The Donation Thermometer

When people can literally see your financial goal, it can help increase their motivation to donate. 

The Donation Thermometer is a fully customizable thermometer plugin that shows your goal’s percentage met as an image. The plugin also has a shortcode which makes it extremely easy to install. 

There is no limit on thermometers per website, and the images are vector-based, a format that won’t slow down your website’s page-load times. 

Fundraising Thermometer

The Fundraising Thermometer is similar to The Donation Thermometer, in terms of function. It offers a donation goal visual for your website that is just as customizable, but has a different graphic style.

The Fundraising Thermometer allows you to choose between two display styles and three sizes. You can also choose your currency and customize your campaign name and colors.

Jetpack’s Donations block is a sleek utility tool for any WordPress website looking to accept donations. Jetpack offers easy-to-follow instructions to implement the block on your website and allows you to customize it to your liking without knowing code or having to fuss with third-party tools. 

The Donations block allows you to accept debit or credit cards, and Stripe provides a safe and secure way for your users to donate online. 

Give yourself the chance to generate passive income and accept the support of your friends, family, and fans by adding Jetpack’s Donations block to your website.

Make sure you have a website that can handle the flood of donation traffic you’ll be seeing. Check out Bluehost’s hosting plans today.