WP SmartPay is well-suited for nonprofit fundraising and crowdfunding. This guide explains how to set up a donation form with suggested amounts, an open amount field, and a progress bar toward your fundraising goal.

Payment Forms vs Donation Forms

A form becomes a donation form when it is attached to a campaign or when Treat as donation form is on in Form Settings → Campaign. Payments on donation forms are recorded as donations and payers become donors. See Donations & Campaigns Overview.

Setting Up a Donation Form

  1. Go to SmartPay → Forms → Add New and start from the Charity Donation template, which already includes donation blocks such as Give Anonymously, Donor Comment and Tribute. See Donation Form Blocks.
  2. Give the form a title such as "Monthly Giving" or "Help Us Reach Our Goal".
  3. In the right sidebar, expand the Pricing panel.
  4. Select Custom Amount as the pricing type.
  5. Click Add Amount to add suggested tiers (e.g., 10, 25, 50, 100).
  6. Set a Minimum Amount (e.g., 5) to prevent $0 or accidental tiny donations.
  7. Mark the most common amount (e.g., 25) as the default — it will be pre-selected at checkout.
  8. Optionally leave a Default Amount in the open input to guide donors who click away from the cards.
  9. Turn on Treat as donation form in Form Settings → Campaign, or attach the form to a campaign.
  10. Publish the form and embed it on your Donate page using the shortcode.
Screenshot of WP SmartPay new form modal showing template and blank options
Start with a blank form or pick a template such as Charity Donation.

Revenue Goal & Progress Bar (Pro)

Tip: For fundraising, use a campaign goal — it can span several forms, count donations or donors, and comes with a public campaign page.

To track a single form instead, set a goal on the form itself and show a progress bar on the form.

  1. Open the form in SmartPay → Forms and click the Goal tab in the right sidebar.
  2. Toggle Enable Goal on, then choose the goal type and target.
  3. Turn on Show Progress to Public to display the Goal Progress block to visitors.
  4. Update the form — the progress bar updates as donations come in.

See Form Goals for full configuration details.

Thank-You / Receipt Page

After a successful donation the customer is redirected to the Payment Receipt page. You can customise this page to include a warm thank-you message by editing the page set in SmartPay → Settings → General → Payment Success Page. Add the [smartpay_payment_receipt] shortcode to that page to display the donation amount and details.

Donation thank-you pages also show the campaign, frequency, a campaign progress box and (Pro) a Download receipt (PDF) link. See Payment Receipts.

Tip: Enabling Test Mode in SmartPay → Settings → Payment Gateways lets you make simulated donations to test the whole flow without processing any real charges.