Looking for an example? Click here for a demo of how your "Donate" page could look!
Go to our registration form to provide your organisation's information and sign up. It's free! Remember, you need to be registered with a PBO number already, read more about PBOs here if your are unsure of your status.
Once you sign up, you'll be able to access your organisation dashboard, or use the "Log in" button at the top right corner of the page.
There, you can set up one more Purposes. If you provide multiple options, donors will be able to choose which one to select when they make their donation, and the text will also appear on their Section 18a receipt. Purposes are useful if you wish to allow donors to donate to specific campaigns or projects, but are not necessary if you wish to collect donations only for your general activities. You need at least one Purpose.
Payment Methods are the names of ways in which donors can send their donation to you. Remember that we do NOT collect the donation on your behalf, all donations go directly to the payment details you provide on your website. The payment methods you define in the DoNation dashboard allow you to easily identify where the donation should be appearing. Example payment methods might be "Bank transfer (EFT) to XXX bank", or "Credit card". The donor will be asked which of these payment methods they will use, when they register their donation. You need at least one Payment Method.
On your dashboard you will also find your "Widget" code, which you need to insert on your website.
We suggest that you put the code on your "donations" page, next to or above the details of how donors should make donations (e.g., bank account details). Donors need to see the widget BEFORE they make their donation, so that they have the correct reference number to use while making payment.
The code needs to be insert exactly as-is, into your page. But, it is HTML code, not text, so needs to be inserted as "HTML". To do so, depending on what platform or tool you use to run your website, you will need to insert an "HTML block", or view the page source and paste the widget code directly.
If you have difficulty with this step, please contact your website designer (if you have one), else contact us.
See below more information for specific platforms, as well as advanced tips for styling of the donation widget, to change the look of the donation form to better match your website.
That's all it takes to start collecting donation details from donors.
However it is VITAL that you log in to your dashboard regularly, to mark donations as received. Whenever you receive a donation (for example, receive a bank transfer), you need to mark the donation as received in the DoNation dashboard. You should be able to easily match donations to bank transactions by comparing the donation reference number, which we provide to the donor for them to use with their donation. We only issue 18a receipts when you mark a donation as received, so the sooner you do this, the better the donor's experience, and more likely they'll be back again in future!
Recurring donations need to be marked as received for every repeat donation.
To successfully insert the widget code (specifically, the <script> piece), you'll need to use a plugin. We suggest:
The style of the donation widget can be adjusted with custom CSS. Add styles to either your .css file, or a <style> tag in the page header, or even in a <style> tag right before the donation widget. Start any CSS rule with "#theDonationWidget div" to target just the donation widget, and not affect anything else on your site.
For example:
would change the font family for text within the donation widget.
