Setup guide · schools & education
How to Set Up Donations for Schools on WordPress
Schools fundraise differently from charities. The donor base is concentrated — parents, alumni, local businesses — and the reasons for giving are very specific. A class trip. A new set of microscopes. A scholarship in someone's name. The right donation tool helps the school keep each of these efforts visible without merging them into one ambiguous "donate" button.
Who is actually giving
Three audiences tend to drive school fundraising. Current parents, who give for projects that touch their children directly. Alumni, who give out of loyalty and often respond well to recurring giving programs. And local businesses or community supporters, who give larger amounts, sometimes via bank transfer, often in exchange for visible recognition.
Each of these audiences responds to a different kind of page. Trying to serve them all with a single donation form usually underperforms.
A practical setup for a school site
- Project-specific forms. One donation form per active project — a class trip, a music room renovation, a robotics team — each on its own page with goal amount, story and gallery. FundCollector supports unlimited forms.
- A scholarship or "named fund" form with a higher suggested amount range, intended for alumni and supporters who give larger gifts.
- A recurring "alumni giving" form with monthly and yearly options. Pro + Mollie. Even modest sustained alumni giving compounds into a significant annual line item.
- Bank transfer enabled for businesses and larger institutional gifts.
- Donor records inside WordPress, so the development office or PTA treasurer has one place to look up history and totals.
Multiple forms, multiple stories
The strongest fundraising pages tell a specific story. "Help us send the year-five class to the science museum" works better than "donate to the school". FundCollector lets you build as many of these as you need, each with its own copy, suggested amounts and email confirmation. When the project ends, the page can be archived and the form replaced.
This also helps with internal accounting. Donations come in tagged to a specific form, which makes it easier to allocate the funds to the right line in the school budget.
Capital campaigns
For larger campaigns — a building extension, a major equipment purchase — a dedicated landing page with a progress bar, a clear story and several giving levels works well. FundCollector's forms can be styled to match the school's brand, and the donations dashboard makes it easy to track progress against the goal. Bank transfer is often important here: large gifts from foundations, alumni networks or local businesses are rarely paid by card.
Privacy and the under-18 question
Schools deal with children. Be careful that no fundraising page collects information about students unnecessarily, and that any photo published on a donation page has appropriate consent. The donation form itself collects only the donor's information, not the beneficiary's. A short note on the page explaining how the funds will be used — and not naming individual children where it can be avoided — is good practice.
Where to start
A small school can launch with the free plugin and run a single project page on PayPal and bank transfer. As the program grows — multiple projects, a recurring alumni initiative, capital campaigns — Pro at $59/year adds Mollie, recurring donations and PDF/CSV reports useful for board updates.
The pricing page compares the two; the getting started guide covers the first form. Related: recurring donations, bank transfer donations.