Organizations of all sorts are now giving importance to CSR activities. It’s a great brand-building strategy that almost every conscious business adopts these days. But, is it so easy to arrange a fundraiser or donation event?
No; a lot of planning and collaboration goes into collecting considerable charity funds. Everyone involved in this task always takes the help of technology to eliminate the tardiness involved and collect as much as possible funds.
Thankfully, there are a couple of tools enabling businesses to achieve this goal, and GiveWP WordPress Donation Plugin is one of them. Already trusted by over 100,000 non-profit organizations, this plugin is what every WordPress-based donation or fundraiser website needs.
This is what the company and data claim. What about its real-time performance? Does it deliver what it claims?
Well, let’s find out together in this detailed GiveWP WordPress donation plugin review.
GiveWP – A Quick Introduction
For those GiveWP is a stranger, it’s a freemium WordPress plugin for donation or fundraiser websites that integrates easily, automates various donation-related workflows, improves collaboration across the globe, and provides a user-friendly interface.
It has everything that seamless peer-to-peer fundraising demands. Wondering what we meant? Well, have a look at its key features.
- Easy To Customized Donation Forms
Say goodbye to all the hassles involved in creating donation forms from scratch with customizable donation forms feature. It offers a wide range of pre-built donation templates that don’t expect you to be a tech whiz.
That’s not the end. The donation forms are highly responsive and align well with any browser and device maintaining a unified user experience.
- Offer multiple payment options
You’ll end up receiving more funds when more payment integrations are offered. Well, this is a sure-shot promise of GiveWP. With its free version, you get to enjoy Stripe and PayPal payment integrations.
Go for its paid version and enjoy ample premium payment add-ons like Bitpay, 2Checkout, mollie, Authorize.net, and many more. In short, your audiences can pay as they wish.
- Accurate and detailed reporting
Want to track the success of your fundraising event? Try the reporting feature of GiveWP that will help you create detailed and insightful reports that will keep updated data on total donations received, gift forms, top donors, funds used, and other metrics. All in all, you’ll have everything essential on your fingers.
- Payment history
Maintain your donor database and stay updated about donor activities with the help of a detailed payment history feature. You can create donor profiles with details like donor notes, private information, payment mode, and so on.
- Error-free data import & export
Whatever data you need to require managing your donation events and efforts can be easily imported & exported with GiveWP.
- Marketing add-ons
Don’t just create donation events. Market them effectively and garner maximum possible attention with GiveWP’s marketing add-ons like ConvertKit, Salesforce, AWeber, MailChimp, and many more.
- Peer-to-peer fundraising
Let the entire community be a part of your donation event with the peer-to-peer fundraising feature. Instantly, you can open your donation form to all your supporters with a single click.
- Google Analytics Donation Tracking
At an affordable cost of $79/ year, you can easily do effortless donation tracking with the help of Google Analytics. No setup and testing are required to bring this add-on into action. GiveWP is highly optimized for GA.
Best Thing About GiveWP
While everything about GiveWP is great and praiseworthy, certain features are just outstanding, and gain an edge for it. As long as GiveWP is in place, you don’t have to worry about:
- Heavy investments as it has a free version. You can try its paid version for enhanced capabilities. Don’t worry! It won’t make you loot a bank as it’s quite affordable.
- Facing operational troubles as it’s performance–built tool with decent customer support.
- Scattered information and workflow as it comes with a centralized Dashboard that brings everything important on a single platform.
- Building an impressive donation form template. Choose from the wide range of pre-built forms and you’re all set to launch as an event. It saves a huge deal of time and effort.
- Possessing great technical competency to use this tool. It’s way too user-friendly and doesn’t ask for certain backend and frontend competencies.
- Updating the features as you’re offered free and timely plugin updates that keep you aligned with evolving needs.
Things That Could Be Better
I love GiveWP and hardly think of any other donation plugin while organizing a fundraiser event. Practically, it takes care of everything essential. But, I am expecting more out of it.
I really wish that its developers should find a solution for the individual add-ons activation system. It takes too much time as one has to find the add-and activate it individually.
Maybe, developers must consider offering an add-on package featuring add-ons of the same category.
For instance, an add-on related to donation forms creation should be in the package and get auto-installed if that package is downloaded. This would be.
Free Or Paid – Which Version Is Right For You
GiveWP is a freemium plugin that allows businesses to get a solution according to their requirements. Of course, people will go for the free version without thinking twice as no investments are involved in this option.
I must admit that its free version offers decent features like Stripe and PayPal payment integration, donor dashboard, reporting, multi-step donation form, and so on. But, it’s not sufficient if you’re an enterprise conducting donation events globally.
For instance, there are no website audits, VIP support, Peer-to-Peer Fundraising add-on, fee recovery, and many other features present in the free version.
The absence of these features can cause troubles for enterprises, as they will only have limited functionality and automation to deploy. This is where it’s paid versions come into the picture. There are four choices offered.
- Basic that charges $149 annually for 1 site license and provides all basic add-ons, multiple payment gateways, and priority support.
- Next, we have Plus available at $349 annually for 1 site license. Along with Basic features, you get recurring donations, premium add-ons, and fundraising website audits.
- Enterprises involved in peer-to-peer fundraising activities can go for $499 annually for 1 site license. You got to enjoy VIP support, free 48-Hour response,
- Agency is an all-inclusive donation management plug-in that can handle up to 5 sites at a time at a $599 annual cost. Everything in Pro is offered for 5 websites.
- All the paid versions are designed in a manner that diverse requirements can be well taken care of. Whether you’re a start or an established enterprise, you will have a suitable donation plugin for you.
With the paid version, you can actually sit back and relax while donation management is streamlined from beginning to end. More than 40 premium add-ons are icing on the cake as they make donation event arrangements optimized and fully customized.
When I was using its free version, I ended up wasting a lot of time launching recurring donation events. I have to put effort repeatedly in organizing the same event for different platforms.
Since I switched to Pro, I don’t have to do this anymore as its recurring donation feature creates subscription-based donation incidences. Free recovery is another premium add-on that I found very useful. We can’t predict an operational cost increase, even if planning is diligent. With this add-on, I can acquire extra funds for the events without any hassles.
Gauging on all this information will help you conclude that its paid version is worth a try. It brings a lot to the table against the amount charged. Still, not everyone is comfortable investing in a plugin instantly. This is why GiveWP offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
If you find it lacking on any front, which is rare, you can claim your money back. What more can one ask for? Maybe a quick response!
Well, you will get that as well. For all its subscriptions, you get to enjoy responsive customer support that takes care of your queries and queries.
Who Should Give It A Try
GiveWP is your pal when you’re an NGO, corporate involved in CSR activities, government agencies arranging fundraiser events, and individuals or groups of people interested in social work.
The plugin will integrate seamlessly with your WordPress website and look after every job that is related to donation and fundraiser management.
Final Verdict – Can You Place Your Bet On GiveWP
As a GiveWP user myself, I can say that you can bet on GiveWP. Trust me: you won’t regret it as it probably has the best possible donation management features that one can ever imagine.
Getting started with the plugin is very easy and won’t keep you engaged for long. With the free version, you have the freedom to test its viability in real time before investing further. But, if you find it good, don’t hesitate to upgrade.
Upgrading from the free to the paid version will unlock new donation management capabilities that will help you scale the campaigns, increase their reach, and bring more attention.
Start the trial today and understand what I am trying to convey here. This is the only way to get familiar with its offerings.
Note: The Author is a GiveWP Affiliate but she promises to have written a genuine overview of the product.