How to Create a Fundraising Website with WordPress (2026)

A donation button on your homepage is not a fundraising strategy. It is a tip jar. Real fundraising requires a website built around campaigns, storytelling, and donor relationships. The organizations that raise the most money online are not the ones with the biggest budgets — they are the ones with the best fundraising websites.

I have helped nonprofits, churches, and community organizations build fundraising websites for years. The difference between a site that raises $500 and one that raises $50,000 comes down to structure, not luck. WordPress gives you every tool you need to build a fundraising website that turns visitors into recurring donors. This guide covers the strategy, the tools, and the techniques that actually work.

What Makes a Fundraising Website Different

A regular nonprofit website informs. A fundraising website persuades. That distinction matters because it changes every decision you make about design, content, and functionality.

A fundraising website needs to do four things well:

• Tell a compelling story — Donors give to causes they connect with emotionally. Your website must communicate the human impact of every dollar.
• Make giving frictionless — Every extra click between “I want to help” and “donation complete” loses donors. The giving process must be fast, simple, and trustworthy.
• Run multiple campaigns — Annual drives, emergency appeals, capital campaigns, event fundraisers. Your site needs to support distinct campaigns with individual goals and timelines.
• Build long-term relationships — A one-time donor is good. A monthly donor is ten times more valuable. Your fundraising website should nurture the relationship after the first gift.

If your organization already has a basic website and needs the technical foundation covered first, our nonprofit website guide walks through the essentials. This guide picks up where that one leaves off — turning your site into a fundraising engine.

Choosing the Right WordPress Theme for Fundraising

Your theme is not just about looks. For a fundraising website, the theme determines whether donors trust you enough to enter their credit card information. A generic business theme creates doubt. A purpose-built nonprofit theme signals legitimacy.

What to look for in a fundraising theme:

• Donation plugin compatibility — The theme must work seamlessly with GiveWP, Charitable, or whichever donation plugin you choose. Styling conflicts between theme and plugin create an unprofessional checkout experience.
• Campaign page layouts — You need pages that combine storytelling with progress bars, donation forms, and impact statistics in a visually compelling way.
• Fast mobile performance — Donors on phones account for over 50% of online giving. If your site is slow on mobile, you are leaving money on the table.
• Trust signals built in — Clean design, visible security indicators, and professional typography communicate that your organization is legitimate and that donations are safe.

Charitas PRO was built specifically for fundraising organizations. It includes campaign-ready layouts, donation integration, and a design that builds donor trust from the first page load. For churches and religious organizations, Benevolence combines fundraising features with ministry-specific tools like sermon management and event calendars. Both are built on clean code that loads fast on every device.

If you are still comparing options, our roundup of nonprofit WordPress themes covers the full range of what is available.

Building Campaign Pages That Drive Donations

Campaign pages are the heart of any fundraising website. Each campaign needs its own dedicated page with a clear structure. Here is the anatomy of a campaign page that converts.

The Headline: State the Need

Lead with what the donation accomplishes, not what your organization needs. “Provide clean water for 500 families this summer” works. “Help us reach our $50,000 goal” does not. Donors give to impact, not to balance sheets.

The Story: Make It Personal

Every campaign needs a human story. Introduce a real person affected by your work. Use their name. Show their photo. Describe their situation before and after your organization helped. Data supports decisions, but emotion drives them. One specific story about Maria who received job training and now supports her family raises more money than statistics about your program serving 10,000 people.

The Progress Bar: Create Urgency

Progress bars work because of two psychological principles. First, people want to back a winner — when a campaign shows momentum, new donors pile on. Second, the closer a campaign is to its goal, the more urgency donors feel to push it across the finish line. Display your goal, current total, and number of donors prominently on every campaign page.

The Donation Form: Keep It Short

The donation form should be visible without scrolling on the campaign page. Pre-set three to four suggested amounts and include a custom amount field. Each suggested amount should be tied to a tangible outcome: “$25 feeds a family for a week,” “$100 provides school supplies for a classroom,” “$500 funds a month of clean water.” This anchoring technique increases average gift size significantly.

For a detailed walkthrough on setting up donation forms and payment processing, see our guide on how to accept donations on WordPress.

Setting Up Recurring Donations

Monthly donors are the financial backbone of successful fundraising organizations. A donor who gives $25 per month is worth $300 per year — and they tend to keep giving for years. Recurring revenue makes budgeting predictable and reduces the constant pressure of one-time fundraising appeals.

Make monthly giving the default option on your donation forms, not an afterthought. Display the monthly option first, then one-time. Frame it in terms of daily cost: “That is less than $1 a day” resonates more than “$25 per month.” Some organizations even name their monthly giving program — “The Circle of Hope” or “Monthly Partners” — to create a sense of belonging.

GiveWP handles recurring donations through its subscription add-on. Charitable offers it through an extension. Both integrate with Stripe for automated billing. The technical setup takes about 30 minutes. The revenue impact lasts for years.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Let Supporters Raise for You

Peer-to-peer fundraising multiplies your reach exponentially. Instead of your organization being the only one asking for donations, your supporters create their own fundraising pages and ask their networks. One marathon runner raising money for your cause reaches 200 people you never could have reached yourself.

WordPress supports peer-to-peer fundraising through plugins like Charitable’s peer-to-peer extension. Supporters create personal pages tied to your campaign, set their own goals, and share links with their friends and family. All donations flow through your payment processor and show up in your central dashboard.

Peer-to-peer works especially well for events: walkathons, bike rides, fun runs, giving days, and birthday fundraisers. Provide your supporters with email templates, social media graphics, and suggested messaging. The easier you make it for them to fundraise, the more they raise.

Email Marketing: Where Donor Relationships Grow

Your fundraising website captures donors. Email keeps them engaged. The organizations that raise the most money treat email as their primary communication channel with donors — not social media, not direct mail.

Build your email list from day one. Every donation form should include an opt-in checkbox. Every page should have a newsletter signup. Use a dedicated email platform like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or ConvertKit that integrates with WordPress.

Send these emails consistently:

• Immediate thank-you — Automated, within seconds of a donation. Include their donation amount, a tax receipt, and a heartfelt message.
• Impact update — Monthly. Show donors what their money accomplished. Use stories, photos, and specific numbers.
• Campaign launches — When a new campaign starts, your existing donors are the first people who should hear about it.
• Year-end appeal — The single most profitable email of the year. Most nonprofits receive 30% of annual donations in December.

For help choosing the right email tool, our roundup of the best email newsletter and marketing tools covers the top platforms and what each one costs.

Fundraising Event Pages

Galas, auctions, walkathons, and giving days need dedicated event pages on your fundraising website. Each event page should include the date, location, registration form, ticket purchasing, and a connection to the campaign it supports.

WordPress handles event management through calendar plugins. For fundraising-specific events, combine an event calendar with your donation plugin. Attendees register for the event and donate on the same page. This reduces friction and increases the likelihood of a gift alongside the registration.

After the event, update the page with photos, the total raised, and thank-you messages. This content serves double duty: it acknowledges current donors and shows prospective donors what they can expect at the next event. Our guide to the best WordPress event calendar plugins covers the tools that make this straightforward.

Measuring What Matters

A fundraising website without analytics is fundraising blindfolded. Track these metrics to understand what works and what needs improvement:

• Conversion rate — What percentage of website visitors actually donate? Most fundraising sites convert between 1-3%. If yours is below 1%, your donation process has friction.
• Average gift size — Track this monthly. If it drops, your suggested amounts may need adjusting. If it rises, your storytelling is working.
• Donor retention rate — What percentage of last year’s donors gave again this year? The nonprofit average is around 45%. Above 60% means your stewardship is strong.
• Cost per dollar raised — Divide your fundraising expenses by total donations. Online fundraising should cost $0.05-0.20 per dollar raised — far cheaper than events or direct mail.
• Traffic sources — Know whether your donors come from Google, email, social media, or direct traffic. Double down on what works.

Connect Google Analytics to your WordPress site through Google Site Kit. Set up goal tracking for completed donations. This data tells you which campaigns, pages, and traffic sources generate the most revenue, so you can focus your effort where it produces results.

Getting Professional Help

Building a fundraising website involves both technical setup and strategic decisions. If you want the technical side handled so you can focus on fundraising strategy, our WordPress and theme setup service takes care of installation, configuration, and page creation. For organizations that need a fully customized design, our website customization service builds exactly what you envision. And if your current site loads slowly and costs you donations, our speed optimization service gets it performing at its best.

For organizations that need multiple nonprofit themes for different campaigns or chapters, the Nonprofit WordPress Themes Package includes every nonprofit and charity theme we build at a fraction of the individual cost.