How to Set Up Donations for Medical Fundraising on WordPress

Three common medical fundraising patterns

The first is the individual patient or family campaign: a person, a family or a small group raising funds for treatment, surgery, equipment or recovery. Often time-sensitive, often shared on social media.

The second is the patient support group or association: an organization that supports people with a specific condition, providing information, peer support and small grants. Recurring donations matter a lot here, because the support work is ongoing.

The third is the health nonprofit: a registered charity raising for research, equipment or programs. Larger gifts come in by bank transfer; smaller ones by card or PayPal. Annual reporting matters more, so PDF reports and CSV exports are useful.

A setup that fits

• A clear, single-purpose donation page with the patient or program story, a goal amount and a small set of suggested donations.
• PayPal as the primary payment method for familiarity and quick checkout. Donors do not need a PayPal account to pay by card through PayPal.
• Mollie for direct card payments (Pro), for donors who prefer to enter card details on the form without going through PayPal.
• Bank transfer enabled for larger gifts and donors who specifically want a paper trail for tax purposes.
• Recurring donations (Pro) for support groups and longer-term needs, where a $10/month commitment from many supporters compounds into reliable funding.
• Email confirmations customized to acknowledge the donation in a way that respects the seriousness of the cause.

Trust signals matter more here than anywhere

Medical fundraising attracts scrutiny, and rightly so. The donation page should make it easy for a hesitant supporter to feel safe giving. A short, real explanation of who is raising the funds, who will receive them, and how they will be used. A link to a privacy policy. A statement on what happens to surplus funds if the goal is exceeded. Verifiable contact information.

FundCollector handles the technical trust layer — HTTPS-only payments, anti-spam protection, no card data stored on your server. The narrative trust layer is your job, but the plugin will not get in the way of it.

Recurring donations for chronic and long-term needs

For ongoing medical needs — long-term treatment, support associations, families dealing with chronic conditions — recurring giving is often the more honest fundraising model. A monthly recurring commitment from supporters who care, even at a modest level, removes the pressure of relaunching the same campaign every six weeks. FundCollector Pro plus Mollie supports monthly and yearly recurring donations, with a dashboard showing active subscriptions and monthly recurring revenue.

Practical considerations

FundCollector is a software plugin, not a payment processor. Whether a specific account is approved by PayPal or Mollie depends on the documentation submitted, the country, and the nature of the campaign — that decision belongs to those companies, and any fundraiser should plan for the verification step early. Once those accounts are active, the donation flow on your WordPress site stays simple, secure and free of platform fees from the plugin itself.

Where to start

For an individual or family campaign, the free plugin with PayPal and bank transfer is often enough. For a support group or health nonprofit planning recurring donations and proper reporting, Pro at $59/year adds Mollie, recurring donations, PDF reports, CSV export and backup & restore.

See the pricing page for the comparison, the getting started guide for the first form, and the related landing pages for recurring donations, Mollie and PayPal.