Setup guide · churches

How to Set Up Donations for Churches on WordPress

Religious giving has its own pattern. Weekly tithes, monthly pledges, an annual missions appeal, a one-off building fund. The donations are not a campaign in the marketing sense, they are part of the life of the community. The donation page should feel that way too.

The giving patterns of a typical congregation

A parish or congregation usually deals with three kinds of giving in parallel. There is regular giving — the steady tithes and offerings that keep the lights on and the staff paid. There is purpose-driven giving — a mission trip, a roof repair, a new piano for the choir. And there is event giving — a Christmas appeal, a Lent collection, a memorial fund.

A donation tool that only handles one-time campaigns will struggle here. What helps is the ability to run several donation forms in parallel, each with its own purpose, while keeping all the donor records in one place.

A setup that tends to fit churches well

One recurring "tithes & offerings" form with monthly and yearly frequencies, powered by Mollie (FundCollector Pro). This becomes the predictable income line for the parish budget.
Separate forms for special collections — Easter, Christmas, missions, building fund — each with its own page and suggested amounts. Multiple forms are supported in both Free and Pro.
PayPal and bank transfer alongside card payments, because long-time members often prefer those methods, especially older donors and larger gifts.
Donor profiles inside WordPress, so the parish secretary can see giving history per family without extra spreadsheets.
Custom email templates that read like the church communicates, not like an automated system.

Things to think about specifically for religious giving

Receipts and tax considerations. Many countries allow religious donations to be tax-deductible if the organization issues proper acknowledgments. FundCollector keeps the donation records and the donor data needed to issue those acknowledgments; the actual receipt template depends on local rules. A treasurer or bookkeeper should validate the format with local guidance.

Privacy and dignity. Giving in a religious context is personal. Avoid public donor walls or leaderboards. Keep amount-by-amount visibility to administrators only. FundCollector does not expose donor data publicly by default.

Anonymous giving. Some donors deliberately wish to give without their name attached. The form fields are configurable, so name and contact can be made optional where this is acceptable.

What the staff side looks like day-to-day

Most weeks, the workflow is small: the secretary checks the new donations in WordPress, confirms any pending bank transfers when they appear in the bank statement, and sends a quick personal thank-you to first-time givers. Recurring donations renew automatically and require no manual follow-up unless a charge fails. The dashboard shows monthly recurring revenue at a glance, which is useful before council and finance meetings.

What about Sunday cash and envelopes?

FundCollector is an online donation plugin — it does not replace the traditional envelope on Sunday. What it does is give the people who already give online a clear, branded place to do it from your own website, instead of sending them to a third-party platform that takes a cut and owns the donor data.

Where to start

For a single church, the free plugin is often enough to begin with PayPal and bank transfer. When the congregation is ready to enable recurring tithes by card, Pro at $59/year adds Mollie and the recurring engine. The pricing page compares the two; the getting started guide walks through the first form.