Benevolence WordPress Theme
- 11 custom post types
- Donation progress bars
- Sermons with audio and video
- Recurring events and Google Calendar
- Card and PayPal donations
- Monthly giving by card
- Latest WordPress, PHP 8.3 to 8.5
- Updated since 2015
- Child theme and demo content
- Support from the developers
A Church WordPress Theme Used by More Than 1,000 Churches
Benevolence is a church WordPress theme by WPlook for churches, parishes, ministries and faith-based nonprofits. It’s built for church staff who run the website themselves, and for the designers and developers who build church sites. Sermons, events, ministries, causes, projects, staff, documents and galleries each have their own section in WordPress, and members can give online by card or PayPal.
What’s Included in Benevolence
11 Custom Post Types
Sermons, events, ministries, causes, projects, staff, documents and galleries, each with its own section.
Sermons with Audio and Video
Attach the recording and the video link to each sermon.
Recurring Events
Add a weekly service once and it repeats on the calendar.
Google Calendar Page
Show your church’s Google Calendar on the website.
Google Maps
Events and ministries show their location on a map.
Online Donations
Accept gifts on each cause page, without a separate donation plugin.
Card and PayPal Giving
One-time gifts by card or PayPal, and weekly or monthly giving by card through Stripe.
Donation Progress Bars
Each cause shows how close it is to its goal.
Donor Accounts
Donors log in to see their past gifts and manage recurring giving.
Document Publishing
Bulletins, newsletters and reports as downloadable files.
WooCommerce Ready
Sell books, merchandise or event registrations.
Social Sharing
Share buttons on sermons, events, causes and other pages.
Regular Updates
Maintained since 2015 and updated for each new WordPress release.
Support From the Developers
Your questions go to the people who wrote the theme.
Fast Pages
No page builder needed, so pages stay light.
Fully Responsive
Works on phones, tablets and desktops.
Child Theme Included
Customize safely, and your changes stay through updates.
Demo Content Import
Start from the demo layout and replace the sample content.
Gutenberg Compatible
Pages are built in the WordPress block editor.
Translation Ready
Ships with a translation file for your language.
Custom Logo
Add your church’s logo in the Customizer.
Font Awesome Icons
Icons for menus, buttons and feature areas.
Upload and Organize Sermons
Each sermon gets its own page with the audio file, the video link and the written text. Group sermons into categories, for example by series or by preacher, and show the archive as a list or a grid.
Members who missed Sunday can listen during the week, and people thinking about visiting can hear your preaching first.
Manage Events and Recurring Schedules
Each event has a date and time, a location with a Google Map, a colour and a category. Show them as a calendar, a list of upcoming events or an archive of past events.
For services and groups that meet every week, set the event to repeat daily or weekly and choose when the repetition starts and ends. Benevolence adds each date to the calendar. If your church already keeps a Google Calendar, a dedicated page template can show it on the site.
Ministry Pages with Times and Locations
Give each ministry its own page with its meeting time, location and a map, so people know where and when to show up. The Ministries list template puts them all on one page.
Accept Donations and Fund Your Causes
Create a page for each cause, such as a building fund, a mission trip or a food drive, with a goal, an end date and a progress bar that updates after every gift. Members give by card through Stripe or with PayPal, and Stripe donors can make the gift weekly or monthly.
Every gift is saved in WordPress as a pledge with the donor’s name, email, country and amount, and donors can choose to stay anonymous. Donors can create an account on your site to see their past gifts and manage their recurring giving. For card gifts, the donor gets an email receipt and you get a notification.
Donation Dashboard
Two charts in your WordPress dashboard show donations month by month and which causes raised the most. You can see how giving is going without exporting anything from Stripe or PayPal.
Showcase Your Projects
Use Projects for building work, mission trips and outreach. Each project has a start date, an end date and a status, and its own page for the story and photos. Show them as a list or a grid, sorted into categories.
Introduce Your Pastors and Staff
Each staff profile has a photo, position, bio, email, phone number and a link to a website or blog. Group people into categories such as pastors, staff and volunteers, and show everyone on a team grid.
Publish Documents, Newsletters and Reports
Upload bulletins, newsletters, annual reports and books as downloadable files. Each document shows its file size, and you can sort documents into categories and show them as a grid or a list.
Sell Online with WooCommerce
Benevolence includes a shop template and styling for WooCommerce, so you can sell books, devotionals, merchandise or event registrations from the same site. WooCommerce is optional, and the theme works without it.
Layouts and Customization
Set your logo in the Customizer and a header image on each page, and preview the changes before you publish. Choose the layout for each section: sermons, causes, projects and documents each come as a grid or a list, and pages can have a left or right sidebar. Regular pages are built in the WordPress block editor.
Maintained for the Latest WordPress and PHP
Benevolence has been on sale since 2015 and still gets regular updates. It runs on the latest version of WordPress, and every change is listed in the public Benevolence changelog. A child theme is included, so your customizations survive every update. Benevolence doesn’t need a page builder, so pages stay light and load fast.
WPlook Nonprofit WordPress Themes Compared
| Theme | Best for | Donations | Recurring giving | Custom post types | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charity | Nonprofits that want card payments and monthly donors | Stripe + PayPal | Yes (Stripe) | 9 | $99/year |
| Charity Life | Fundraising campaigns on PayPal | PayPal | No | 8 | $99/year |
| Charitas PRO | Charities and foundations tracking projects | PayPal | No | 7 | $99/year |
| Benevolence | Churches: sermons, events, ministries | Stripe + PayPal | Yes (Stripe) | 11 | $99/year |
| Biosphere | Environmental organizations | Stripe + PayPal | Yes (Stripe) | 8 | $99/year |
| Charitas Lite | Small nonprofits starting for free | Not built in | No | — | Free |
Choose Benevolence if your website is for a church or ministry. For a general nonprofit, Charity is our nonprofit WordPress theme. Our guide to building a nonprofit website covers the rest of the setup.
Who Is Benevolence For?
- Church staff who look after the website: communications directors, office administrators and volunteers who are comfortable working in WordPress.
- Designers and developers who build church websites: the church post types are already in place, and the child theme is there for custom work.
- Faith-based nonprofits and ministries: causes, projects and online giving work just as well outside a parish.
Why Choose Benevolence?
Customers who have run Benevolence for years mention the same reasons in their reviews:
- It fits the way a church website works, with sermons, events and giving built in.
- Beginners can run it, and developers can extend it with the child theme.
- It has been maintained since 2015.
- Support comes from the developers who built it, and answers quickly.
Benevolence or a Free Church Theme?
Many churches start by looking for a free church WordPress theme. A free theme can work for a simple site. The trade-off is that sermons, recurring events and online giving usually mean adding and maintaining several plugins. Benevolence includes them in the theme, along with updates and support. If you need a free option from WPlook, Charitas Lite is free on WordPress.org, but it has no sermons and no built-in donations. For more free options, see our list of free church website templates.
FAQ
- Does Benevolence support PHP 8.3 and newer?Yes. Benevolence is tested on PHP 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5, and our live demo runs on PHP 8.5.
- Is Benevolence compatible with the latest WordPress?Yes. Benevolence is updated for each new WordPress release, and every update is listed in the changelog.
- Does Benevolence accept recurring donations?Yes, through Stripe. Members can give weekly or monthly by card. PayPal donations are one-time.
- Do I need Revolution Slider or a page builder?No. Benevolence has its own slider post type and works with the WordPress block editor. Revolution Slider is supported if you already use it.
- Can I turn off post types I don’t use?Yes. Each custom post type can be switched off in the Customizer, and its URL can be renamed.
- Is there a free version?Benevolence is a paid theme. WPlook’s free nonprofit theme is Charitas Lite, a different theme with no sermons and no built-in donations.
- Can a designer or developer customize it?Yes. A child theme is included, and the code follows WordPress coding standards.
15 reviews for Benevolence WordPress Theme
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David Salch (verified owner) –
This is the ULTIMATE theme for a church organization! We have spent hours and hours looked at dozens of themes, some costing much more, and settled on Benevolence. It is head and shoulders above the others in features, clean design, and usability. The integration of so many features is beautiful and simple. Beginners can operate the features easily, which can not be said for all themes. We actually had previously purchased a more expensive theme from another author and ended up replacing it with this one due to being just too difficult to use by comparison.
The resulting look of this theme is clean and straightforward. Not cluttered with flashy features which tend to distract from content. Just enough styling and “fancy features” to make it feel modern without the website itself becoming the center of focus. The church and the content is what the viewer experiences.
The feature list has it all! integration into donations systems, maps, sliders. Easy support for sermons, publications, commerce, events, causes, projects, staff, and more. And all features are implemented in similar functionality so it is easy to learn and utilize. These guys have thought through the user needs and experience as well as the viewer.
And I must add, the customer service is over the top! These guys went above and beyond the expected, to support specific needs we had. They were helpful, polite, eager, and in the end even made a change to the theme to support a specific need.
I highly recommend trying these themes!
ABDULAZIZ MOHAMED OOGLE –
I have purchased Benovelence 2015, its great theme and so easy to use. I really recommed to purchase this them
Glenn (verified owner) –
Very happy with WPLook and service.
Binoy (verified owner) –
Hi, I have purchased this theme for my church website in 2016. This is a great theme, easy to modify. Easy to setup. Excellent support from the team. Resolved all my queries on time and very helpful. As a web administrator, i was looking for a great theme with excellent support so this theme fits very well. I would highly recommend this theme. Binoy Abraham (indianorthodoxireland.ie)
Suzanne (verified owner) –
The theme is very beautiful and we get lots of compliments on the look of the website.
htparish –
I purchased Benevolence back in October 2015, and I have been most satisfied with it. I am the Communications Director for a medium-sized urban Episcopal Church, and the Communications Committee were waffling between the theme/DIY approach and going with a total Web site solution service (ecclesia360), and it was the look and features of Benevolence that tipped the decision.
I wasn’t certain that I had to purchase the Revolution Slider to make my site look just like the demo–and I could have asked–but I got it anyway, just to have all the extra features. If it is required to make it look like the demo, that should be stated somewhere clearly.
I’ve only encountered a few minor bugs so far–honestly far, far less than I’ve encountered in premium themes, and I don’t mean this at all as a veiled criticism. I’ve added quite a few plugins, and Benevolence has played well with them all so far.
The feature set is so well thought out and implemented, and I would absolutely recommend this theme to any other church Webmasters.
Thank you.
Glenn Empey (verified owner) –
I am totally impressed with the timely, courteous, and effective support response for WPLook! Excellent products and superb support. stlukesanglican.ca
Zoila Disla –
This theme is beyond awesome. I love the flexibility, the features, Design quality is out of this world. It’s so crisp. And as though that isn’t enough, customer support is outstanding. LOVE IT!!!!!
dblessing –
This is a fantastic theme. It simplifies management of all the types of pages a church might need to create. Support is very quick and friendly. On top of all this, the theme is beautiful. I’m so glad I came across this theme. Thanks!
vibewebmedia –
Excellent coding… and SUPERIOR support!
Rssg Matt –
This is one of the best website I’ve worked with. Easy to work with and the support team was fast to answer. I highly recommend WPlook as a web team to buy from.
Slancio Creativo –
The template is very nice graphically customizable in every detail and support is always great and on time.
Adjie Yudistira –
Always listening and understanding… love it, they always provide me anything that I’m asking about this themes, even if it’s out of scope. Thank you very much.
a2noir –
Quick response from the support group. Thank you.
volvopower –
Support and theme are great!